To read the title aloud, you'd have to say "quote, quote-unquote, unquote," which then leads to an endless amount of quoting, which is a bit of a mouthful. I was thinking today that quotes are very important. I mean that in two ways:
Quotes are important because saying...
I'm singing singing in the rain in the rain.
...makes no sense. But if you say...
I'm singing "singing in the rain" in the rain.
...it becomes a little clearer. Quotes, as you can see, are important.
Quotes, in the sense of the word referring to things other people have said, are just as important. To quote somebody means that you have at some point absorbed a nugget of knowledge about that person. After all, and I quote, "Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research."1 People use quotes often, and not just for research, but for inspiration. People live by quotes, and quite frankly, for the amount of time that the concept of language has been around, by now everything we say is a quote. If you can't find the words to say, the chances are someone else has said it already, and in more eloquent rhetoric. Naysayers will say, "Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them,"2 and will I say, "Aha! You fool!"
The dumbfounded stallion will stand there perplexed, not being able to think of anything original to retort.
"You see, my friend," I will say. "'Originality is the art of concealing your sources.'3 It worked for Shakespeare, 'after all, all he did was string together a lot of old well-known quotations.'4"
__________________________________________________________________
Concealed Sources:
1 Wilson Mizner
2 Samuel Palmer
3 Unknown (ironic, eh?)
4 H.L. Mencken
4 comments:
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thanks ^_^
it's like an infomercial, where it's a race for everyday people to think of things that make confusing things simpler...except with language it's finding the more exact, interesting, and intelligent way to describe or say a thought...so language is an invention itself....word?
i guess you did get something out of being and english major!!!
too bad you can't use language like that in Taiwan... you must be getting sick of simple sentences by now. :)
Mencken was an old fuddy-duddy who never had a positive thing to say...read what he has to say about the death penalty. Now THERE'S some light reading!
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