I don't know if English is the only language where some expressions only and solely mean the opposite of what they say but we do have an awful lot of them.
It's difficult for me to feel that a solid page without the breakups of paragraphs can be interesting. I break mine up perhaps sooner than I should in terms of the usage of the English language.
An Englishman teaching an American about food is like the blind leading the one-eyed.
Ben Rome was a perfectionist. He checked every letter that went out to make sure the English was correct.
It would no doubt be very sentimental to argue - but I would argue it nevertheless - that the peculiar combination of joy and sadness in bell music - both of clock chimes, and of change-ringing - is very typical of England. It is of a piece with the irony in which English people habitually address one another.
The Englishman never enjoys himself except for a noble purpose.
An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose.
English is necessary as at present original works of science are in English. I believe that in two decades times original works of science will start coming out in our languages. Then we can move over like the Japanese.
I don't only write about English literature; I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants.
I think literary theory has not been terribly good for English studies in a while. It's not that theory isn't interesting, but it isn't about books, or the idiosyncrasies and complexities of putting language together.
