“ English is a language in which literacy is achieved by the expression of a huge vocabulary, through the interstices of a loose and easy syntax. It is a language that prizes evolution and surprise, one that requires curiosity and diligence … In all languages the illiterate may be recognized by their ignorance of approved syntactical arrangements, but in English, once grammar has been absorbed, only vocabulary, and perhaps accent, distinguishes one speaker from his ‘inferior.’ But in the French language, grammar is a tyrant. It is monstrously difficult, and within its labyrinths are hidden all delicacy and sense, all meaning, all purpose…
Geoffrey Wolff, Black Sun: The Brief Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby
Quote tagged as: geoffrey_wolff black_sun books_i_m_reading_now
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