Politicians

Now patriotism
Is found in the lexicon
Politicians
Are deprived of it today
They want money and power

poem by Asif Andalib
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Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

quote by Samuel Johnson
Added by Lucian Velea
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Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true.

quote by Samuel L. Jackson
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true.

quote by Samuel L. Jackson
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Linguist

If we lived in a world where bells
truly say "ding-dong" and where "moo"
is a rather neat thing
said by a cow,
I could believe you could believe
that these sounds I make in the air
and these shapes with which I blacken white paper
have some reference
to the thoughts in my mind
and the feelings in the thoughts.
As things are,
if I were to gaze in your eyes and say
"bow-wow" or "quack", you must take that to be
a despairing anthology of praises,
a concentration of all the opposites
of reticence, a capsule
of my meaning of meaning
that I can no more write down
than I could spell the sound of the sigh
I would then utter, before

[...] Read more

poem by Norman MacCaig
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Turning Dictionaries On Their Head

History of dictionaries
before Samuel Johnson's
are rarely read
this sad state of affairs
I shall turn on its head.

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Lexicon

Import free export free
Free trade
No import no export.

Levy not
Lexicon here
Search the meaning
Find nothing.

poem by Gajanan Mishra
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Djolan

Soft was the night, the eve how airy,
When through the big, fat dictionary
I wandered on in careless ease,
And read the a's, b's, c's and d's!

But stop! What is this form I see,
Beginning with a hump-backed d?
I pause! I gasp! I falter there!
It is the djolan, I declare!

It is the djolan, wond'rous word!
The Buceros plicatus bird!
Ne'er, ne'er before had I the bliss
To meet a djolly word like this!

'Twas djust before my dinner hour --
Well, let the djuicy djoint go sour!
Djoyful I read. I djust must see
What this strange djolan word may be!

[...] Read more

poem by Ellis Parker Butler
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Poetry consists in a rhyming dictionary and things seen.

quote by Gertrude Stein
Added by Lucian Velea
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Facts are not science - as the dictionary is not literature.

quote by Martin H. Fischer
Added by Lucian Velea
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At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.

quote by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Added by Lucian Velea
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If a word in the dictionary were mispelled, how would we know

quote by Steven Wright
Added by Lucian Velea
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The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.

quote by Vince Lombardi
Added by Lucian Velea
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Dictionary - opinion expressed as truth in alphabetical order.

quote by John Ralston Saul
Added by Lucian Velea
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If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?

quote by Steven Wright
Added by Lucian Velea
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"Was not" was all the Statement.

"Was not" was all the Statement.
The Unpretension stuns —
Perhaps — the Comprehension —
They wore no Lexicons —

But lest our Speculation
In inanition die
Because "God took him" mention —
That was Philology —

poem by Emily Dickinson
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A dictionary can only be read when it is printed.

Chinese proverbs
Added by Lucian Velea
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Writers Recycle

Discarded dictionaries
Coffee cups
drained of energy
Wine bottles
emptied of inspiration
Ice buckets of ideas
Novels consumed
Speeches spoken

poem by Kay Bressner
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Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools.

quote by Napoleon
Added by Lucian Velea
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Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.

quote by Napoleon Bonaparte
Added by Lucian Velea
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