M.I.T. has a reputation for turning out Dilberts. They may be brilliant in what they do, but no one can understand what they say.Steven Pinker
For one thing, before the 20th century, there were plenty of genocides. We tend to forget about them, partly because they weren't as well documented and partly because, until recently, people didn't care. We used euphemisms like 'sackings' and 'sieges' instead of calling them 'genocides.'Steven Pinker
Indeed, children thrown together in a community that doesn't have a language of its own will invent one in order to communicate with each other.Steven Pinker
I don't think language could have evolved if it was the only distinctive trait. It goes hand in hand with our ability to develop tools and technologies, and also with the fact that we cooperate with nonrelatives.Steven Pinker
People are under the impression that dictionaries legislate language. What a dictionary does is keep track of usages over time.Steven Pinker
Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we're exposed to an infectious world.Steven Pinker
Look at almost any passage, and you'll find that a paragraph has five or six metaphors in it. It's not that the speaker is trying to be poetic, it's just that that's the way language works.Steven Pinker
I'm very interested in language because it reflects our obsessions and ways of conceptualising the world.Steven Pinker
If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.Ralph Waldo Emerson
