Have you thought about what’s happened to how we use language now? How we put messages and ideas we mean to get across? Since speed and ease are the big drivers in today’s communication, I thought I’d take you on a visit to how something as tough as insults were creatively put by writers and speakers in days gone by. Read these and enjoy the masterful way language was used. Do they tempt you to re-think how you write those emails?
A little levity helps put criticism in perspective, even though it’s sometimes hard to take. I think you’ll enjoy these………I know I did.
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
………………………………………….Winston Churchill
A modest little person, with much to be modest about.
…………………………………………Winston Churchill
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great
pleasure.
…………………………………………Clarence Darrow
He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the
dictionary.
…………………………………………William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
Does he really think big emotions come from big words?
…………………………………………Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time
reading it.
…………………………………………Moses Hadas
He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.
………………………………………..Abraham Lincoln
I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.
………………………………………. Groucho Marx
I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved
of it.
………………………………………..Mark Twain
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
………………………………………..Oscar Wilde
I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a
friend, if you have one.
………………………………………..George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second if there is one.
……………………………………….Winston Churchill, in response to Bernard Shaw
He is a self-made man and worships his creator.
……………………………………….John Bright
I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it¹s nothing trivial.
……………………………………….Irvin S. Cobb
He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.
……………………………………….Samuel Johnson
He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.
………………………………………..Paul Keating
He had delusions of adequacy.
………………………………………..Walter Kerr
There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure
…………………………………………Jack E. Leonard
He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.
…………………………………………Robert Redford
They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human
knowledge.
………………………………………..Thomas Brackett Reed
He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by
diligent hard work, he overcame them.
…………………………………………James Reston (about Richard Nixon)
In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.
………………………………………..Charles, Count Talleyrand
He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.
………………………………………..Forrest Tucker
Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?
………………………………………..Mark Twain
His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.
……………………………………….. Mae West
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
………………………………………..Oscar Wilde
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts for support rather
than illumination.
………………………………………..Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
He has Van Gogh¹s ear for music.
………………………………………..Billy Wilder
Reading Between the Lines 