In this retrospection we will discuss Quotes, Sayings and Proverbs. I have written a number of posts with small collections of these, but I also quote amply in my other articles. One reader, @wakeupkitty, once asked from where I got the quotes, my answer now is the same as then: “I make notes of interesting lines I read, and since I read copiously, and have done since childhood, I have thousands of quotes in small notebooks.“
My first post here dealing exclusively with this subject was "Make a Distinction Between Quotes & Proverbs, and Attribute Properly". I came to write it in response to that quite many members here were using quotes and proverbs carelessly and sometimes without proper attribution. Not always by lack of care, but often by obvious ignorance. Many of those members wanted to handle things in a professional way, but simply lacked the knowledge.
I think this was a worse problem back then than it is now. A large number of members lacked good knowledge in as well English as editing. Even if they had something to say, they could not shape it to a good article although most of them wanted to write well. It made me many times considering to write about how to write, but I never came to that. How to write and attribute proverbs and quotes was the first; the only other article I ever posted in that or any related matter is "What You Need to Know about Copyright". The latter is an attempt to explain an often misunderstood concept in an easy-to-understand way, without leaving loose threads. Every author needs to understand copyright properly.
Anyway, back to proverbs & quotes. These are the collections so far. From my first period at read.cash (ending August 2020):
With a Touch of Humour - More Quotes
From my second period (starting December 2020):
Tongue Twisters, which is an article not strictly being about proverbs or quotes. Most people have encountered games with words, such as “She sells sea shells by the sea shore.“ They are called tongue twisters and even if they can be fun, their real purpose is to train speech.
Antibigbrotherism Quotes – and about Creating a New Word, in which, apart from the quotes, I coin the word “antibigbrotherism”, and claim that “as an author, I use my right to be creative with the language”.
There is a story behind my point of view there, a story I did not relate in that article. It goes back to something that happened roughly 40 years ago.
I was a young aspiring author, and my first novel in English happened to be read by a very famous English author, then already an old lady. She wrote to me, it was snailmail in those days, and said she liked my book very much - but that she wanted to give me some constructive criticism, some suggestions of improvement. Then followed a long list of suggested changes, with detailed analysis of how I built my sentences and stories.
Initially flattered by the attention from this heavy-weight representative of English literature, the long list of suggested corrections humbled me. My second thought was that “How can she say my book is good when she finds so many weaknesses in it?” I lost my desire to write and put everything away... for a week. Then I decided to go through all these comments, make the changes and see how it would become.
It became very much better! I realised that she was right and that this was experience talking; I had been given the opportunity to learn from a master!
This was the beginning of a peculiar friendship, which lasted until her death a few years later. During these years, she did proofread everything I wrote in English and we discussed almost every sentence in detail. It gave me an insight into writership, and especially writing in English, I would never otherwise have got. It is worth noting, that all this contact took place via snailmail only. We never met in person.
So what has this to do with creating new words?
Once I did send her a manuscript with a word in it, about which I wrote in a note that “I don't know whether this word exists in English”.
Her reply was swift: “Now it does!”
I was not really sure what she did mean, so I requested clarification. She wrote: “It didn't exist, but now it does. You have created it. As an author, it is your indisputable right to be creative with the language. As long as a word suits the English pattern of grammar and pronunciation, and is well understood without extra explanations, feel free to use it. If it doesn't exist before, that is no problem; there is a first time for everything, also for words.”
Crypto Quotes + Comments. In this article, apart from regular quotes, I also relate parts of an article I wrote about digital money in 2005, some years before Bitcoin turned up.
Nietzsche: Selected Quotes & Brief Comments. This article requires no further explanation. The title says it all.
Finally, for those of you who have asked how many articles I have published at read.cash. "Retrospection 3" is article number 256.
Except for "What You Need to Know about Copyright", all articles mentioned here can be found under Quotes, Proverbs, Sayings in my index.
My series “Retrospection” is primarily created for new readers of mine, as a manual into my production at this platform so far - but it can be read by anyone who wants to explore my articles topic by topic, rather than doing so in chronological order.
Copyright © 2021 Meleonymica/Mictorrani. All Rights Reserved.
You find all my writings on Read.Cash, sorted by topic, here.
Nice one