“59: In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.”

Epigrams on Programming, 1982

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "59: In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages." by Alan Perlis?

Alan Perlis30

American computer scientist 1922–1990

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941) American linguist

Source: Language, thought and reality (1956), p. 61.

“I would really like to do theatre in my native language because that would be like so relaxed after ER … English … those medical words!”

Goran Višnjić (1972) Croatian actor

“It is impossible for us English lawyers, dealing with the English language, to express our views except in the technical language of our law.”

Arthur Kekewich (1832–1907) British judge

Lauri v. Renad (1892), L. R. 3 C. D. [1892], p. 413.

“Our nation is exceptional because it was built on the five most beautiful and powerful words in the English language, "I want to be free."”

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

2010s, Speech at the Republican National Convention (July 20, 2016)

“Human relations are like the irregular verbs in a number of languages where nearly all verbs are irregular.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Journals A 126 (March 1836)
1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s
Context: One could construe the life of man as a great discourse in which the various people represent different parts of speech (the same might apply to states). How many people are just adjectives, interjections, conjunctions, adverbs? How few are substantives, active verbs, how many are copulas? Human relations are like the irregular verbs in a number of languages where nearly all verbs are irregular.