There is no plausible theory under which the record of the Pentagon Papers can be interpreted as relating to the national defense.
Noam ChomskyRead
I'm about as monolingual as you come, but nevertheless, I have a variety of different languages at my command, different styles, different ways of talking, which do involve different parameter settings.
Interpretation
Even with limited language skills, one can express themselves in diverse ways.
Noam Chomsky highlights that being monolingual does not restrict one's ability to engage in different languages and styles of communication. He suggests that individuals can still possess a range of expressive capabilities, adapting their speech and writing to various contexts, which reflects the complexity of human expression beyond mere vocabulary.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the importance of communication skills in a multicultural environment.
There is no plausible theory under which the record of the Pentagon Papers can be interpreted as relating to the national defense.
The 'free-floating intellectual' may occupy himself with problems because of their inherent interest and importance, perhaps to little effect.
If you're teaching today what you were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead or you are.
There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster;' instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.
The Republican Party has become overwhelmingly so extreme that it's hardly a traditional political party anymore.
There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information - the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified.
A standard international language should not only be simple, regular, and logical, but also rich and creative.
We are surrounded by hundreds of 'tribes,' each speaking their own distinct slanguage of colourful words, jokes and phrases that together form an idiosyncratic phrasebook, years in the making.
Those who sniff decay in every shift of sense or alteration of usage do the language no service. Too often for such people the notion of good English has less to do with expressing ideas clearly than with making words conform to some arbitrary pattern.
Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence.
The Hebrew language will go from the synagogue to the house of study, and from the house of study to the school, and from the school it will come into the home and... become a living language
People have been warning us that language was going to the dogs ever since Latin started turning into French. Yet the dogs in question never seem to emerge yelping on the horizon.
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