Walt Whitman
American poet
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
The science of language has large and close analogies in geological science, with its ceaseless evolution, its fossils, and its numberless submerged layers and hidden strata, the infinite go-before of the present.
—Walt Whitman, American poet, Slang in America, 1892
Posted on May 18, 2004 at 6:50 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Slang ... is the wholesome fermentation or eructation of those processes eternally active in language, by which froth and specks are thrown up, mostly to pass away; though occasionally to settle and permanently chrystallize.
—Walt Whitman, American poet, Slang in America, 1892
Posted on November 13, 2003 at 8:07 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Considering Language then as some mighty potentate, into the majestic audience-hall of the monarch ever enters a personage like one of Shakspere’s clowns, and takes position there, and plays a part even in the stateliest ceremonies. Such is Slang, or indirection, an attempt of common humanity to escape from bald literalism, and express itself illimitably, which in highest walks produces poets and poems, and doubtless in pre-historic times gave the start to, and perfected, the whole immense tangle of the old mythologies.
—Walt Whitman, American poet, Slang in America, 1892
Posted on October 30, 2003 at 7:40 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all. From this point of view, it stands for Language in the largest sense, and is really the greatest of studies. It involves so much; is indeed a sort of universal absorber, combiner, and conqueror. The scope of its etymologies is the scope not only of man and civilization, but the history of Nature in all departments, and of the organic Universe, brought up to date; for all are comprehended in words, and their backgrounds.
—Walt Whitman, American poet, Slang in America, 1892
Posted on October 26, 1999 at 9:05 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
O the orator's joys!
To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the ribs and throat,
To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with
yourself,
To lead America- to quell America with a great
tongue.
—Walt Whitman, American poet, "Calamus: A Song of Joys," Leaves of Grass, 1855
Posted on June 3, 2002 at 7:10 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Camerado! This is no book;
Who touches this touches a man.
—Walt Whitman, American poet, So Long!
Posted on February 4, 2003 at 8:52 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Language is not an abstract construction of the learned or of dictionary makers, but something arising out of the work, needs, joys, tears, affections, tastes of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.
—Walt Whitman, American poet, Slang in America, 1892
Posted on December 14, 2001 at 6:44 PM
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