300 definitions
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John W. Cowan: top 300 quotes
300 definitions
Proto-Indo-European (language) (n.) is Latin as spoken by Klingons.
English (language) (n.) is a variety of Old French invented by somebody who spoke only Saxon and read only Latin.
English (language) (n.) is all exceptions and no rules.
English (language) (n.) doesn't care where syllable boundaries are.
English (language) (n.) is the language of people who think that everybody else speaks their language just as French is the language of people who think that everybody else should speak theirs.
English (language) (n.) is a marriage between German and French.
English (language) (n.) is a constructed language. That is, a language constructed over centuries by a succession of drunken mobs.
English (language) (n.) is BASIC for humanities students.
English (language) (n.) is German with a license to kill.
English (language) (n.) is a bizarre dialect of Chinese, pronounced entirely in the first tone.
English (language) (n.) is a Germanic language that has eaten far too many French dishes for its own good.
English (language) (n.) is the language you speak without moving your mouth.
English (language) (n.) is any other language spoken with a very hot potato in one's mouth.
English (language) (n.) is a language in which up has forty-seven dictionary definitions, but antidisestablishmentarianism is considered a "hard word".
English (language) (n.) is a tale told by an extremely clever and inventive idiot.
English (language) (n.) is the inevitable result of repressing the gender of nouns.
English (language) (n.) is the noise made by people who don't believe you can use language but want your stuff handed over politely.
English (language) (n.) is what happens when you can't decide whether the Greeks or the Romans had the better civilization, so you ask everybody they ever beat up on to sort it out.
English (language) (n.) is partly dysfunctional Scandinavian.
English (language) (n.) is Pictish that was attacked out of nowhere by Angles cohabiting with Teutons who were done in by a drunk bunch of Vikings masquerading as Frenchmen who insisted they spoke Latin and Greek but lacked the Arabic in which to convey that.
English (language) (n.) is the works of Joyce with the hard bits taken out.
German (language) (n.) is Gothic with Latin syntax.
German (language) (n.) is a direct descendent of an Indo-European creole.
German (language) (n.) had a lot of future up until about 60 years ago.
German (language) (n.) is Attila's attempt to speak French.
German (language) (n.) is the crossroads between Latin and Slavic languages with some cold herring from the Northern Sea.
German (language) (n.) is a parody of Yiddish.
German (language) (n.) is Yiddish without the Hebrew.
German (language) (n.) is English spoken with a head cold.
German (language) (n.) is a a verb-second language
German (language) (n.) is the only language in which "I love you" sounds threatening.
German (language) (n.) is southern grammar and lexis with northern phonology.
German (language) (n.) is a philosophical cough.
German (language) (n.) is Dutch with a gay lisp
German (language) (n.) is a form of assembly language consisting entirely of far calls heavily accented with throaty guttural sounds.
German (language) (n.) is a guttural dialect of French with more fs and aus.
German (language) (n.) is English spoken by Barbarians.
German (language) (n.) is a language developed by a group of Teutons who gathered in the forest one day to come up with a language that their enemies would have no chance of grasping.
German (language) (n.) is bastardized Yiddish.
German (language) (n.) is eßëntiälly Ënglisch mit ein few Tschängen und das käpitäal Lëtteren und Lötten von Dötten.
German (language) (n.) is English as spoken by a drunken, slurring nuclear-plant technician desperately trying, and failing, to get a date by expounding on "The Sorrows of Young Werther" and, then, logically enough, committing suicide.
French (language) (n.) is English spoken while eating a very big piece of Brie cheese.
French (language) (n.) is less than what French speakers think it is and more than the rest of us think it is.
French (language) (n.) is refined Catalan.
French (language) (n.) is the language you think you can speak until you arrive in France.
French (language) (n.) is the only language worth speaking -- according to the French.
French (language) (n.) is the pidgin Latin that Caesar's army used to solicit German whores.
French (language) (n.) is essentialement englaishe ouithe les endinges funnies et lottes de vowelles et les adjectifs en alle les places ronges.
French (language) (n.) elides everything that doesn't get out of the way fast enough, and nasalises everything else.
French (language) (n.) is just Celtic with a heavy overlay of Vulgar Latin.
French (language) (n.) is je ne sais quoi.
French (language) (n.) is the linguistic equivalent of a really bad tailgating accident in which all the final consonants either are lost or stuck on the windshield of the next car.
French (language) (n.) is Inuktitut disguised as Latin.
French (language) (n.) is Latin spoken by a drunken Roman soldier.
French (language) (n.) is the first syllables of Latin words spoken with a headcold.
French (language) (n.) is English minus a few obvious germanicisms.
French (language) (n.) is Latin forced to comply with destructive sound changes and German influence.
French (language) (n.) is what happened when Germans tried to learn Latin and said "screw it."
French (language) (n.) is Latin spoken by Germans (with their mouths full).
French (language) (n.) is Latin as spoken by rowdy drunken Gauls mocking the Roman legions in their own language.
French (language) (n.) is the language that Americans don't learn before travelling abroad.