Linguist Gifts

Ancient Grammar Police: 'Oh, for cryin' out loud...you never end a sentence with a . . .'

"Actually, it's pronounced 'An-hel'."

'Avez-vous French toast?'

'I like it. It's catchy and easy to remember.'

"I'm sorry – you have the wrong language."

Fist bumps in other languages

Sock Drawer

Grammarian.

'I say to hell with it. If it can't be said in English, it ain't worth saying at all.'

Got idea. Talk better. Combine words. Make sentences.

'It must be nice to be bilingual.'

'But this is fantastic, professor! It's like no language I've ever seen before!'

Semantics - A classroom in which meanings are discussed (Actually, this is just a door. The classroom is on the other side of the door.)

"We'll start out by speaking in simple declarative sentences."

'My teacher said the school has tough new standards and I need to improve my vocabulary. What's 'Vocabulary'?'

"You'll have to phrase it another way. They have no word for 'fetch.' "

Institute for Nonverbal Communication.

Present Tense/Present Simple/Present Progressive/Present Perfect/Present Past.

'I've written you a disciplinary letter in French to soften the blow.'

'My invention is even more remarkable than yours. It is the simple declarative sentence.'

What's the big surprise? All the latest theories of linguistics say we're born with the innate capacity for generating sentences.

'I miss the good old days when all we had to worry about was nouns and verbs.'

Professor treating acronyms like formulae.

'I'm not impressed, Rupert, by your language skills, or your cultural understanding.'

Tug of pronunciation: 'We say to-may-to...' 'We say to-mah-to...'

"It's eagle before snake except after feather."

"This is delicious. I'm glad I didn't try to order in Italian"

'Fly on the wall meet Elephant in the room and Skeleton in the cupboard.'

Woman to co-worker: 'Some people want to abolish apostrophes ? but I'm very possessive about them.'

The First Sentence Fragment: 'Hey, don't -'

Research into how men and woman communicate

"Sometimes, from time to time, now and again, at times I wish I'd never been given this Thesaurus."

Future Tents

'He's having trouble pronouncing his arrrrhhhs.'

Never say goodbye say ciao!