“Her majesty is one verb short of a sentence.”

— Jasper Fforde, book Lost in a Good Book

Source: Lost in a Good Book

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Her majesty is one verb short of a sentence." by Jasper Fforde?

Jasper Fforde photo

Jasper Fforde75

British novelist 1961

Related quotes

“Rudy Giuliani — there's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Democratic primary debate (October 30, 2007)
2000s

“His sentences didn't seem to have any verbs, which was par for a politician. All nouns, no action.”

Jennifer Crusie (1949) American writer

Source: Charlie All Night

“Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love the verb or our loving actions. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Unlike the current occupant of the White House, he has no difficulty in orally extemporising a series of grammatical English sentences, each containing a main verb.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

endorsing Barack Obama, Telegraph Column, October 21, 2008
2000s, 2008

“That was Hera. Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

“Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.”

Mark Twain book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Source: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), Ch. 22

“At fourteen months he began speaking in sentences, short and of his own structure, but sentences. The subjects of his conversation, or, rather, his statements, were consistently egocentric. Normal again—no one expects an infant to write essays on the beauties of altruism.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 14, “—and beat him when he sneezes”, p. 131

“I’ve heard it said: ‘By his home you shall know him’; and we all know that we must pay attention to anyone who reverses the subject and auxiliary verb in his sentence.”

Steven Brust book Issola

Source: Issola

“Love is a verb… and Verbs show action”

Mr. T (1952) American actor and retired professional wrestler

Quotes from acting

“The proverbial German phenomenon of the verb-at-the-end about which droll tales of absentminded professors who would begin a sentence, ramble on for an entire lecture, and then finish up by rattling off a string of verbs by which their audience, for whom the stack had long since lost its coherence, would be totally nonplussed, are told, is an excellent example of linguistic recursion.”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

"Recursive Structures and Processes"
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

Related topics