"Consonantal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consonantal sounds and an which is used before vowel sounds are called indefinite articles because they individualize without specializing. The is called the definite article because ...
— Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton
... are not even that. They are mere arbitrary symbols. We use consonants where the bird uses none, as when we give the name cuckoo to a bird whose cry is really "ooh, ooh." Or else we put in the wrong consonants, which is shown by the fact that different nations assign different consonantal sounds to the same bird. We do not even agree on the vowel sounds. What is there in common between our English "Cock-a-doodle-doo" and M. Rostand's "cocorico"? And we need not go as far as the animal world. See how the nations differ in spelling out that elementary human sound which ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... contends, "is perceived to consist of six [probably he meant to say eight] heavy syllables, each composed of a vowel followed by a group of consonantal sounds, the whole measured into four equal feet. The movement is what is called spondaic, a spondee being a foot of two heavy sounds. The absence of short syllables gives the line a peculiar weight and solemnity suited to the sentiment, and doubtless prompted by it."—American Review, Vol. i, p. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown |
