Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Zoomorphic Element

Posted on December 27, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Zoomorphic Element: Ornament based on animal forms.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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Term of Art: Multiple Intelligences

Posted on December 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

“multiple intelligences (MI): The theory that many people have many ways of demonstrating their capabilities and that rather than being a single entity, intelligence is made up of distinct learning proficiencies that can work individually or together. In 1983, psychologist Howard Gardner introduced the concept of multiple intelligences in his book Frames of Mind to show that the usual school-based emphasis on rationality and logic is not the only way to be ‘intelligent.’ There is now a huge following for MI; many schools have adopted some version of it, and related training and professional development programs have proliferated. Gardner originally identified seven intelligences, only the first two of which are typically valued by schools: verbal-linguistic (the ability to use language to convey information well and to analyze language use); logical-mathematical (the capacity to analyze problems logically, grasp abstractions, recognize codes and patterns, and investigate issues scientifically) visual-spatial (the ability to recognize and manipulate the relationships of object, concepts, or images in different dimensions); musical-rhythmic (sensitivity to pitch and rhythm of sounds, as well as skill in performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns); bodily-kinesthetic (the ability to use body movement to connect with information, solve problems, and convey ideas); interpersonal (the awareness of others’ intentions, motivations, and feelings, and the ability to interact with others with understanding); and intrapersonal (the capacity to understand oneself and to recognize one’s own feelings, fears, and motivations). Gardner subsequently added and eighth intelligence: naturalist intelligence, or the ability to recognize, categorize, and draw on certain features of the natural environment. Critics say that these intelligences are actually aptitudes or abilities, or variations of rational thinking, rather than what most people consider general intelligence, and that no one can function successfully in the modern world without the linguistic and logical skills valued by schools.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

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Thomas Henry Huxley on the Great Tragedy of Science

Posted on December 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

“The great tragedy of Science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

Thomas Henry Huxley, “Biogenesis and Abiogenesis” (1870)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Dalton Trumbo

Posted on December 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Dalton Trumbo: (1905-1976) American screenwriter and novelist. One of Hollywood’s highest paid writers in the 1930s and 1940s, Trumbo was blacklisted and served a prison term for his refusal—as one of the ‘Hollywood Ten’—to answer questions about Communist affiliations posed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947. Living in Mexico, he continued to write popular movie scripts, such as Exodus (1960), The Sandpiper (1965), and The Fixer (1968), although some of his work in the 1950s had to be credited to pseudonyms. He published four novels, including Johnny Got His Gun, all of which expressed his populist attitudes.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar

Posted on December 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar: Contrasting terms in linguistics. A descriptive grammar is an account of a language that seeks to describe how it is used objectively, accurately, systematically, and comprehensively. A prescriptive grammar is an account of a language that sets out rules (prescriptions) for how it should be used and for what it should not be used (proscriptions), based on norms derived from a particular model of grammar. For English, such a grammar may prescribe I as in It is I and proscribe me as in It’s me. It may proscribe like used as a conjunction, as in He behaved like he was in charge, prescribing instead He behaved as if he were in charge. Prescriptive grammars have been criticized for not taking account of language change and stylistic variation, and for imposing the norms of some groups on all users of a language. They have been discussed by linguists as exemplifying specific attitudes to language and usage. Traditional grammar books have often, however, combined description and prescription. Since the late 1950s, it has become common in linguistics to contrast descriptive grammars with generative grammars. The former involve a description of linguistic structures, usually based on utterance elicited from native-speaking informants. The latter, introduced by Chomsky, concentrate on providing an explicit account of an ideal native speaker’s knowledge of language (competence) rather than a description of samples (performance). Chomsky argued that generative grammars are more valuable, since they capture the creative aspect of human linguistic ability. Linguists generally regard both approaches as complementary.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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Karl Kraus on Morality

Posted on December 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Morality is a disease which progresses in three stages: virtue—boredom—syphilis.”

Karl Kraus

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Write It Right: Insignificant for Trivial, or Small

Posted on December 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Insignificant for Trivial, or Small. Insignificant means not signifying anything, and should be used only in contrast, expressed or implied, with something that is important for what it implies. The bear’s tail may be insignificant to a naturalist tracing the animal’s descent from an earlier species, but to the rest of us, not concerned with the matter, it is merely small.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Term of Art: Total Physical Response

Posted on December 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Total Physical Response: A language teaching method based on the belief that students will learn better when full bodily motion is involved in the process. Developed by educator and researcher James J. Asher, TPR is supposed to replace the traditional learning strategy of sitting at a desk and reading a book. Verbal commands are replaced by physical ones. For example, teachers may teach the alphabet by having students like on the floor to form letter shapes or have students learn punctuation by mimicking the shape of a period, a comma, or an exclamation point. There is some historical precedent for TPR; in the early 19th century, some pedagogues believed that students would learn the alphabet if they ate biscuits in the shape of letters, an ineffective practice that eventually disappeared.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

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The Doubter’s Companion: University

Posted on December 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

“University: A place in which a civilization’s knowledge is divided up into exclusive territories.

The principal occupation of the academic community is to invent dialects sufficiently hermetic to prevent knowledge from passing between territories. By maintaining a constant flow of written material among the specialists of each group they are able to assert the acceptable technique of communication intended to prevent communications. This in turn establishes a standard which allows them to dismiss those who seek to communicate through generally accessible language as dilettantes, deformers, or popularizers.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

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Demonstrative Pronoun

Posted on December 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Demonstrative Pronoun: A pronoun that shows where something is in relation to the speaker and listener. Standard English has four demonstratives, paired and with number contrast; this/these here, that/those there. Some dialects have three (this, that, yon/yonder) and Scots has this, that, yon/yonder and its variant thon/thonder. The set of three are comparable to Latin hic this near me, iste, that near you, ille that over there. For some grammarians, the term covers the demonstratives however used; for others, demonstrative pronouns (‘I like that,’ Give me some of these’) are distinguished from demonstrative determiners (‘I like that one,’ ‘Who are these people?’).”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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