Ammon Shea Quotes

#1. TEXAN: "Where are you from?" HARVARD STUDENT: "I am from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions." TEXAN: "OK, where are you from, jackass?" - Variation on an old joke

Ammon Shea

#2. Except when it didn't, as in the case of names that already end in an s, such as Jones' book (a practice that is now out of style).

Ammon Shea

#3. The original meaning of dilapidate (from the Latin dilapidare, to squander) was to allow a building to fall into a state of disrepair. In New York dilapidators are simply known as landlords. also

Ammon Shea

#4. And for many of the other questions, the answers I received were cloaked in the sort of highly polished public relations vagueness that makes responses so measured and couched in nuance that they are essentially meaningless.

Ammon Shea

#5. Silentiary (n.) An official whose job it is to command silence. I would like to have my very own silentiary, someone I can bring to the library and to the apartment next door. Sitzfleisch

Ammon Shea

#6. [U]se extreme caution, and please remember that 451 degrees Fahrenheit is more than just a book a title....

Ammon Shea

#7. This almost never happens, outside of the realm of scientific terminology (which is obviously a domain populated by sadists with no regard for language).

Ammon Shea

#8. I FEEL AS THOUGH I AM EATING the alphabet. Twenty-six courses of letters, each with its own distinctive flavor. It is inevitable that some letters will taste delicious, others not so much. Some will have a delicate flavor, others will be more like a hearty peasant stew.

Ammon Shea

#9. There can be funny moments during sad stories

Ammon Shea

#10. Surgically augmented breasts and a large vocabulary are two things that come to mind when I contemplate that which is showy and of little value, but I'm certain that you can think of others. also

Ammon Shea

#11. Anglo-Saxon tends not to lend itself to long and elaborate words that have strung together three or four affixes to create a rhetorical term for a very obscure thing. While

Ammon Shea

#12. Heterophemize (v.) To say something different from what you mean to say. Think back on all the things you've said in life that you truly wish you hadn't. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just claim afterward that you had been heterophemizing, and be instantly forgiven? Homodoxian

Ammon Shea

#13. Mediocrist (n.) A person of mediocre talents. Nobody wants to be mediocre, but someone has to be. In fact, by definition, most people are. Microphily

Ammon Shea

#14. Vocabularian (n.) One who pays too much attention to words. In the past I have been accused by various parties of paying too much attention to words. Which is true, I suppose; but what else do I have to pay attention to? Vomiturient

Ammon Shea

#15. Charientism (n.) A rhetorical term to describe saying a disagreeable thing in an agreeable way.

If I knew how to say disagreeable things in an agreeable fashion I most likely would not be spending most of my time siting alone in a room, reading the dictionary.

Ammon Shea

#16. Induratize (v.) To harden the heart. Among the inevitabilities of old age are that the heart is hardened twice; first figuratively, through experience and loss, and then literally, in the form of atherosclerosis.

Ammon Shea

#17. Heterodogmatize (v.) To have an opinion different from the one generally held. Just because you are in proud possession of opinions that differ from those of the majority of the population is no reason to start patting yourself on the back. Usually it just means you are wrong. also

Ammon Shea

#18. The pessimist's nostalgia, deteriorism goes far beyond simply whining that things used to be better and takes the bold stance that the world is actively and energetically going to hell in a handbasket. also

Ammon Shea

#19. Along with tableity (the condition of being a table) and paneity (the state of being bread), cellarhood is a wonderful example of the spectacular ways English has of describing things that no ever thinks it necessary to describe.

Ammon Shea

#20. Monodynamic (adj.) Having only a single talent. The technical word to describe a one-trick pony. Moreish

Ammon Shea

#21. ...Zachary winched a few more letters onto his last name and declared himself king of the Z aficionados.

Ammon Shea

#22. Telephone books are, like dictionaries, already out of date the moment they are printed....

Ammon Shea

#23. It indicates possession for plural nouns, between the end of the plural word and the s that follows, as in children's. Except when the word ends in an s, in which case it should come at the end of the word, with no additional s added ("the books' covers").

Ammon Shea

#24. The Verbalist, 1894

Ammon Shea

#25. No one is yet using figuratively to mean literally; the confusion, such as it is, is all in one direction.

Ammon Shea

#26. Sesquihoral (adj.) Lasting an hour and a half. Because sometimes you just don't feel like saying "an hour and a half." Short-thinker

Ammon Shea

#27. Among people who might be described as having at least a passing regard for the English language, there are few instances of usage that evoke a desire to mutilate more than the perceived misuse of literally.

Ammon Shea

#28. For the benefit of those half-dozen people who will see a name like Gwillim and put this book down in order to go look it up to see where it comes from - it is the Welsh version of William

Ammon Shea