The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature
Steven Pinker
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Dear White Fella When I am born I’m black When I grow up I’m black When I am sick I’m black When I go out ina sun I’m black When I git cold I’m black When I git scared I’m black And when I die I’m still black. But you white fella When you’re born you’re pink When you grow up you’re white When you git sick you’re green When you go out ina sun you go red When you git cold you go blue When you git scared you’re yellow And when you die you’re grey And you got the cheek to call me coloured?”
“One can choose to obsess over prescriptive rules, but they have no more to do with human language than the criteria for judging cats at a cat show have to do with mammalian biology.”
“Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality—the way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world.”
“If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? I a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume? A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings. But fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, hammers don't ham, humdingers don't humding, ushers don't ush, and haberdashers do not haberdash...If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese-so one moose, two meese? If people ring a bell today and rang a bell yesterday, why don't we say that they flang a ball? If they wrote a letter, perhaps they also bote their tongue.”
“There is a joke about a little girl who is filling in a hole in her garden when a neighbor looks over the fence. He politely asks, "Hi! What are you up to?" "My goldfish died," replies the girl tearfully, "and I've just buried him." The neighbor asks, "Isn't that an awfully big hole for a goldfish?" The little girl tamps down the soil and replies, "That's because he's inside your stupid cat.”
“Much can be gained be contrasting a theory with its alternatives, even ones that look too extreme to be true. You can really understand something when you know what it is not.”
“People take even greater umbrage when they hear themselves labeled with a common noun. The reason is that a noun predicate appears to pigeonhole the with a stereotype of a category rather than referring to them as an individual who happens to possess a trait.”
“Knowledge, then, can be dangerous because a rational mind may be compelled to use it in rational ways, allowing malevolent or careless speakers to commandeer our faculties against us. This makes the expressive power of language a mixed blessing: it lets us learn what we want to know, but it also lets us learn what we don't want to know. Language is not just a window into human nature but a fistula: an open wound through which our innards are exposed to an infectious world. It's not surprising that we expect people to sheathe their words in politeness and innuendo and other forms of doublespeak.”
“The concept of a connotation is often explained by the conjugational formula devised by Bertrand Russell in a 1950s radio interview: I am firm; you are obstinate; he is pigheaded. The formula was turned into a word game in a radio show and newspaper feature and elicited hundreds of triplets. I am slim; you are thin; he is scrawny. I am a perfectionist; you are anal; he is a control freak. I am exploring my sexuality; you are promiscuous; she is a slut. In each triplet the literal meaning of the words is held constant, but the emotional meaning ranges from attractive to neutral to offensive.”
“Peppier n. The waiter at a fancy restaurant whose sole purpose seems to be walking around asking diners if they want ground pepper.”
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