It hasn't been a problem with Ben, I think we worked together very well, we don't have rows.

At the same time we overlap, because, I do linguistics, and Ben did a first degree in Linguistics at Lancaster University, so he knows some of my subject.

It took three years to put Shakespeare's words together, there were a lot of words to be studied and a lot of words to be sorted out, and it proved to be a major project.

As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.

It hasn't been a problem with Ben, I think we worked together very well, we don't have rows.

A feature of English that makes it different compared with all other languages is its global spread.

Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument.

Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood.

Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it.

At any one time language is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres and dialects.

English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background.

Ever since the arrival of printing - thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people's minds - people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language.

Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.

Likewise, there is no evidence that texting teaches people to spell badly: rather, research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language.

Sending a message on a mobile phone is not the most natural of ways to communicate. The keypad isn't linguistically sensible.

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.

Text messaging is just the most recent focus of people's anxiety; what people are really worried about is a new generation gaining control of what they see as their language.

Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster.

The story of English spelling is the story of thousands of people - some well-known, most totally unknown - who left a permanent linguistic fingerprint on our orthography.

Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using.

Word books traditionally focus on unusual and quirky items. They tend to ignore the words that provide the skeleton of the language, without which it would fall apart, such as 'and' and 'what,' or words that provide structure to our conversation, such as 'hello.'

You don't talk to a linguist without having what you say taken down and used in evidence against you at some point in time.

Swearing makes an excellent relief mechanism.

It doesnt take a language long to disappear once the spirit to continue with it leaves its community. In fact the speed of the decline has been one of the main findings of recent linguistic research.

Joke exchanges are carried on in deadly earnest, like a verbal duel-mouth-to-mouth combat. Bang, bang: you’re (linguistically) dead.

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries eventually reflect popular choices. And the Internet is allowing more people to influence spelling than ever before.

Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using.

Individualism is what makes cooperation worth living.

Moving to Flagstaff from the big city of Melbourne taught me what it takes to become a better runner. For one, there is the altitude, but more importantly, seeking the best is about being surrounded by the best.

I would like Modi to become the Prime Minister and expand the Gujarat model of development across the country.

I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art.

The Liberals have been pressing for the brief on the basis of which he said there was authority for war.

I saw a lot of operas from backstage and watched a lot of rehearsals - my parents were singers.

Nothing can be more useful to you than a determination not to be hurried.

A pen connects you to the paper. It definitely matters.

When I go on the set, I'm so rushed. When I see the actors at rehearsal, when I love it, I want to keep the mood - my mood and the actors' mood also. So I have to push the crew faster. I don't want to lose the mood.

By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

Our money is bait money, and bait money is not to be used.

You don't watch 'A Beautiful Mind' and say, 'This is how every mathematician is.'

The only still center of my life is Macbeth. To go back to doing this bloody, crazed, insane mass-murderer is a huge relief after trying to get my cell phone replaced.

The movie business is very much like that: people in authority making purely emotional decisions instead of interesting rational ones.

If I thought that any of this was pre ordained, then it takes away any kind of incentive to struggle, or to put up with things, to reach for those impossible dreams, all those dramatic things.

I realistically eat every hour and 15 minutes. I watch the clock to see when I eat again. I'm almost upset that I'm not eating now.

Acting's incredibly enjoyable, but sometimes it doesn't feel quite enough. I've also written a script about the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. This will make me sound like a female Kenneth Branagh, but I can't think of anything nicer than directing myself from a script I wrote.

There is no intimacy without vulnerability. Yet another powerful example of vulnerability as courage.

True Yankees are born, not made.

The network made me join Twitter. I am very scared of social media, and I don't know how to use it, so it's kind of trial and error.

All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who can condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character, or illustrates an existence.

What I really want is to play the romantic lead and get the girl.