Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing. It embodies, indeed, something better than the metaphysics of the Stone Age, namely, as was said, the inherited experience and acumen of many generations of men.
J.L. Austin
J.L. (John Langshaw) Austin (1911–1960), British philosopher. “A Plea for Excuses,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1956). Philosophical Papers, p. 185, Oxford University Press, second edition (1970).