Long Words Quotes:

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

- George Orwell

topic: Truth, Real, Long, Insincerity, Language Words

One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.

- Stephen King

topic: Writing, Dressing Up, Clothes, Long Words, Cuteness

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

- George Orwell

topic: Long, Use, Long Words, Simile, Figures Of Speech

How come abbreviated is such a long word?

- Steven Wright

topic: Funny, Humor, Long, Long Words

His heart; some long word at the heart. He is dying of a long word.

- Evelyn Waugh

topic: Heart, Long, Dying, Long Words

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

- George Orwell

topic: Cutting, Thinking, Voice, Long Words, Passive Voice

Speak English!' said the Eaglet. 'I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and I don't believe you do either!

- Lewis Carroll

source: Lewis Carroll (2015). “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: That CUPCAKE was off her head!”, p.23, Oldcastle Books

topic: Believe, Speak English, Long, Long Words, Alice Adventures In Wonderland

Why does everyone have to pretend to be stupid and not know long words?

- Martin Freeman

topic: Stupid, Ignorance, Long, Long Words

It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

- William Safire

topic: Writing, Long, Use, Long Words, Superlatives

I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

topic: Long, Purpose, Use, Long Words

I was just asking Chad [Myers], how can you get a volcano in Iceland? Isn't it too- when you think of a volcano, you think of Hawaii and long words like that. You don't think of Iceland.You think it's too cold to have a volcano there.

- Rick Sanchez

topic: Thinking, Iceland, Volcanoes, Long Words, Chad

There are science teachers who actually claim that they teach "a healthy skepticism." They do not. They teach a profound gullibility, and their dupes, trained not to think for themselves, will swallow any egregious rot, provided it is dressed up with long words and an affectation of objectivity to make it sound scientific.

- Anthony Standen

source: Anthony Standen (1950). “Science is a sacred cow”

topic: Teacher, Science, Thinking, Long Words, Science Teacher

Well,” said Owl, “the customary procedure in such cases is as follows.” “What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?” said Pooh. “For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.

- A. A. Milne

source: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) ch. 4

topic: Mean, Long, Owl, Long Words, Winnie The Pooh Inspirational

When we asked Pooh what the opposite of an Introduction was, he said "The what of a what?" which didn't help us as much as we had hoped, but luckily Owl kept his head and told us that the Opposite of an Introduction, my dear Pooh, was a Contradiction; and, as he is very good at long words, I am sure that that's what it is.

- A. A. Milne

topic: Opposites, Long, Owl, Long Words

There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose." Where?" In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically.

- Roald Dahl

source: Roald Dahl (1991). “Collected Stories”, Everyman's Library

topic: Wise, Clever, Memories, Long Words

Do not put statements in the negative form. And don't start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

- William Safire

topic: Editing, Long, Negative, Conjunctions, Trendy

It's not unsporting to thrash a cowardly cad,' said Simmons. 'Everyone knows you don't fight like a gentleman.' 'That might be called an oxymoron,' Ramses said. 'Oh--sorry. Bad form to use long words. Look it up when you get home.' The poor devil didn't know how to fight, like a gentleman or otherwise.

- Barbara Mertz

topic: Sorry, Home, Fighting, Long Words, Cad

What are letters?” “Kinda like mediaglyphics except they’re all black, and they’re tiny, they don’t move, they’re old and boring and really hard to read. But you can use ’em to make short words for long words.

- Neal Stephenson

source: Neal Stephenson (2003). “The Diamond Age”, p.46, Spectra

topic: Moving, Long, Black, All Black, Long Words

I like 'pencil-necked weasel'. It has 'pencil' in it. Pencils are good things. You can draw or write things with pencils. I think it's what you call someone when you're worried that using a long word like 'intellectual' may have too many syllables. It's not something that people who have serious, important things to say call other people.

- Neil Gaiman

source: "Neil Gaiman hits back at US politician's theft accusation" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. May 5, 2011.

topic: Writing, Thinking, Long, Long Words

Long words, fat talk they may tell us something about ourselves. Has the passion for fat in the language increased as self-confidence has waned?

- Russell Baker

topic: Passion, Self Confidence, Long, Long Words

Never is a long word.

- Ivy Compton-Burnett

source: Ivy Compton-Burnett (2011). “A Heritage and its History”, p.138, A&C Black

topic: Long, Long Words

IF is a very long word in Formula One; in fact, IF is F1 spelled backwards.

- Murray Walker

topic: Long, Racing, Facts, Long Words, Formula 1

There are some simple maxims which I think might be commended to writers of expository prose. First: never use a long word if a short word will do. So, if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.

- Bertrand Russell

source: Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.37, Routledge

topic: Simple, Thinking, Long, Long Words, Short Words

The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration."

- Gilbert K. Chesterton

source: Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.93, Simon and Schuster

topic: Long, Metaphysical, Damn, Long Words, Degeneration

There's this moment sometimes, when you do a crossword puzzle and you have the one really long word. And once you get that, the whole thing kind of comes into focus. Sometimes it's just working things over in your mind and then finding that one line that kind of ties the song together, and now it works. It's a puzzle of sorts.

- Craig Finn

source: Source: therumpus.net

topic: Song, Ties, Long, Long Words, Working Things

If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know? If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words? Why is 'phonics' not spelled the way it sounds? How come abbreviated is such a long word?

- George Carlin

topic: Long, Firsts, Sound, Long Words

That is a long word: forever!

- Georg Buchner

source: "Leonce and Lena". Play by Georg Buchner, Act I, 1838.

topic: Long, Forever, Long Words

Those who run to long words are mainly the unskillful and tasteless; they confuse pomposity with dignity, flaccidity with ease, and bulk with force.

- Henry Watson Fowler

topic: Running, Long, Ease, Long Words, Pomposity

As someone who sends texts messages more or less non-stop, I enjoy one particular aspect of texting more than anything else: that it is possible to sit in a crowded railway carriage laboriously spelling out quite long words in full, and using an enormous amount of punctuation, without anyone being aware of how outrageously subversive I am being.

- Lynne Truss

topic: Long, Texting, Messages, Long Words, Railway

I had forgotten that Jess felt about long words the way that racists feel about black people: She hated them, and wanted to send them back from where they came from.

- Nick Hornby

source: "A Long Way Down". Book by Nick Hornby, May 7, 2005.

topic: Long, People, Black, Long Words

Programme names have been changed, and we have Andrew Neil saying he won't be using long words.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

source: "Dimbleby lets rip at BBC 'anoraks'" by Jason Deans, www.theguardian.com. January 10, 2003.

topic: Names, Long, Andrew, Long Words

A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.

- George Orwell

topic: Real, Lying, Latin, Insincerity, Long Words

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components,

- William Zinsser

topic: Writing, Secret, Good Writing, Long Words, Writing Well

Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich.

- Gilbert K. Chesterton

source: 1905 Heretics, ch.13.

topic: Science, Errors, Long, Long Words