Language, never forget, is more fashion than science, and matters

Language, never forget, is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling, and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines. – Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way, 1990

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There is no element in which language resembles music more than in the punctuation marks…. Exclamation points are like silent cymbal clashes, question marks like musical upbeats, colons dominant seventh chords… – Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969), “Punctuation Marks,” Notes to Literature, V

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Grammar
[B]ut why care for grammar as long as we are good? – Artemus Ward (1834–1867), Pyrotechny, “V.—What This Young Man Said”

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No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place. – Isaac Babel

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Grammar

The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood for the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid. – Edgar Allan Poe

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Grammar

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