| Lemma | destruction |
|---|---|
| Categoria grammaticale | N |
| Lingua | inglese |
| Sigla | Whitney (1875) |
| Titolo | The Life and Growth of language |
| Sinonimi | disuse (inglese) |
| Rinvii | existence (inglese) use (inglese) |
| Traduzioni | |
| Citazioni | Existence, in speech, is use, and disuse is destruction. Whatever leads to disuse leads to loss […]. The tendency to abbreviation for ease, for economy of effort in expression, is a universal and blind one; destruction lies everywhere in its path. The same process which, by a disguising fusion and integration of elements once independent, makes a word or form, goes straight on to its contraction and mutilation- and in early language as certainly, though not necessarily so rapidly, as in later. |