Linguists are no different from any other people who spend more than nineteen hours a day pondering the complexities of grammar and its relationship to practically everything else in order to prove that language is so inordinately complicated that it is impossible in principle for people to talk. – Ronald W. Langacker (b.1942), Language and Its Structure, 1973

Among the losses punctuation suffers through the decay of language is the slash mark or diagonal… – Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969), “Punctuation Marks,” Notes to Literature, V

Devotees of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable felicities of expression. – A. Bronson Alcott, “Culture: IV.—Mother Tongue,” Tablets, 1868