Anu Garg Quotes

People travel. Words travel. People settle in new lands and so do words. Did I hear someone say they wanted to make walls, close off people from one another? Here’s to more travel, more mixing, more migration, more import and export, and more sweetness in our lives!

A word in the head is worth two in the book.

AWADies will be familiar with Anu Garg's refreshing approach to words: words are fun and they have fascinating histories.

[T]hat's how a language grows. Old words die - or take on a new life. New words appear. Language wordstock is replenished, refreshed, and the language remains vibrant and serviceable, ready to describe new concepts, ideas, and objects. Many language purists object to this way of growth. But we have to remember that just as yesterday's liberal is often tomorrow's conservative, in many cases, what was considered slang in the past, eventually acquires respectability.

The verb "fuck" has been a part of the language since at least early 1500s. The actual practice, far longer. So, no need to be embarrassed of either.

The best way to enrich vocabulary is organically, by coming across words in their natural habitat, taking the time to learn about them, their histories, and making lifelong friends with them.

If you speak English, you speak at least a part of more than a hundred languages.

All the life's wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie.

Like a human being, each word has a story. To understand a word, we need to learn where it was born, what paths it took to reach where it is today and how it has changed along the way.

English never met a word it didn't like.

A large vocabulary is like an artist having a big palette of colors. We don't have to use all the colors in a single painting, but it helps to be able to find just the right shade when we need it.

If you torture words enough, they'll confess to anything.

Garg works in the great tradition of Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis... Garg, however, is more fun.

There are exotic species of words jumping out inviting me to play. I weave them into a theme, a garland of words.

For as long as I can recall, I enjoyed reading. I literally read books from cover to cover. Then I started wondering where words come from. Who made them up? Who said that that opening in a wall was to be called a window? Then I discovered that each word comes with a biography. These words have fascinating stories to tell, if only we take the time to listen. For example, the word window comes from Old Norse in which it meant wind's eye. How much more poetic can you get?