"Pronunciation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had a good map of Ireland, but they taught us, in our geography lessons, the correct Irish pronunciation of the names of places, such as (spelling phonetically) "Carrawn Thooal," "Croogh ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... use of two languages, one Calabrian, with a foreign accent and pronunciation; the other a peculiar one of their own, which in sound, seems to have great affinity to the Oriental tongues; and is spoken when they have secrets to impart to each other. They sleep like dogs in a kennel, men, women, and children ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... understand. These laws, however positive, are not found to be of universal application, or at least, a child has not always wit or time to apply them upon the spur of the occasion. In coming to the words ingenious gentleman, get a good grammar, he may be puzzled by the nice distinctions he is to make in pronunciation in cases apparently similar; but he has not yet become acquainted with all the powers of this privileged letter: in company with h, it assumes the character of f, as in tough; another time he meets it, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... winter delightfully, reading to each other, and lately studying German. I knew a little, just enough to empower me to hold the rod, and be somewhat impertinent, and I have entire preeminence in the way of pronunciation. But ever and anon I am made quite humble by being helped out of thick forests by my knight, instead of guiding him. So we teach each other in the most charming manner, and I call it the royal road to knowledge, finally discovered by us. Mr. Hawthorne writes ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... learned together and performed in one point of time; as musicians exercise their memory, their voice, their fingers, and sometimes their head and feet at once. And so a preacher, in the invention of matter, election of words, composition of gesture, look, pronunciation, motion, useth all these faculties at once: and if we can express this variety together, why should not divers studies, at divers hours, delight, when the variety is able alone to refresh and repair ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... or a vulgar pronunciation in English; but in Irish gave rise to the antiquarian theory of Dr. Smith, who, in his History of Cork, concludes that the Round Towers were penitential prisons, because the Irish word for a penitential ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... inventive, constantly to find out better ways of doing things. Habit takes care of our standing, walking, sitting; but how many of us could not improve his poise and carriage if he would? Our speech has become largely automatic, but no doubt all of us might remove faults of enunciation, pronunciation or stress from our speaking. So also we might better our habits of study and thinking, our methods of memorizing, or ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... the East, could have so thoroughly mastered the soft Oriental intonations. Yet in all these languages, when they came to compare their several recollections, there was a slight, scarce perceptible distinction, not in pronunciation, nor even accent, but in the key and chime, as it were, of the voice, between himself and a native. This faculty was one which Glyndon called to mind, that sect, whose tenets and powers have never been more than most partially explored, the Rosicrucians, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... performers in paying due attention to the business of the scene. Her eye never wanders from the person ahe speaks to, or should look at when she is silent. Her modulation of grief, in her plaintive pronunciation of the interjection, Oh! is sweetly moving, and reaches to the heart. Her madness in Belvidera is terribly affecting. The many accidents of spectators falling into fainting-fits during her acting, bear testimony to the ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... Christian truth when it came in its full form from the living missionary and the vital word of God. Some one has well said that the languages of modern Europe are nothing more than Christianity expressed with differing pronunciation and vocabulary. To him who will receive it, the mastery of any one of the languages of Christendom, is, in a large sense, a revelation ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... words as though they were English; and this made it not a little difficult to help him, when he read out a German sentence and asked for a translation. He certainly had a bad ear for vocal sounds, so that he found it impossible to perceive small differences in pronunciation. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... agreed upon the relationship of uncle and aunt to Content—"tells me that you have been telling her about your—big sister Solly." The rector half gasped as he said Solly. He seemed to himself to be on the driveling verge of idiocy before the pronunciation of ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... really a helpful influence. It engaged quite a wide range of membership, and we discussed almost everything. Some of our members were fluent of speech from long participation in Methodist experience meetings. Others were self-trained even to pronunciation. One man of good mind, always said "hereditary." He had read French history and often referred to the Gridironists of France. I have an idea he was the original of the man whom Bret Harte made refer to the Greek hero as "old Ashheels." Our meetings were open, and ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... the language and the choice of words are dark matters to most of our young Americans; this has long been acknowledged and struggled against. But even darker, and quite equally destructive to English expression, is their state of mind regarding pronunciation, enunciation, and voice. It is the essential connection of these elements with English speech that we have been so slow to realize. We have felt that they were externals, desirable but not necessary adjuncts,—pretty tags of an exceptional gift or culture. Many an intelligent school ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... great deal of its terminology. In a short conversation he talks well and is coherent. The aggressiveness which is ever with him leads him to stick to the point. He has had very little instruction, his pronunciation is often defective and he does not know the meaning of many of the longer terms with which any lawyer should be acquainted. He speaks fluently and has now long posed, among other things, as ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... the youngest of the company, and remarkably fond of birds, had saluted her by the well known appellation of mag, poor mag; she wagged her tail with surprising agility, and began to chatter in such an elevated tone, and with such a rapid pronunciation, that I was heartily glad when the kind Bramin commanded silence. "The body of this party coloured, loquacious bird, said he, is the involuntary residence of the late Miss Dorothy Chatterfast; who was a most notorious little gossip, and belonged ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... than my pronunciation!" She laughed amusedly. "I wish you would find me an interpreter to put my polite remarks into polite sounding phrases. I know I put things ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... question these, his lesser peculiarities, would never have been numbered among his points of excellence. His voice is neither strong nor melodious, his gestures are neither easy nor graceful; but, on the contrary, extremely rude and awkward; his pronunciation is not only broadly national, but broadly provincial, distorting almost every word he utters into some barbarous novelty, which, had his hearer leisure to think of such things, might be productive of an effect at once ludicrous and offensive in a singular degree. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... a jaundiced eye (there was no love lost between us), and declared at once that it was strange, very strange. His pronunciation of English was so extravagant that I can't even attempt to reproduce it. For instance, he said "Fferie strantch." Combined with the bellowing intonation it made the language of one's childhood sound weirdly startling, and even if considered purely as a kind of unmeaning noise it filled ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... should be met with amongst the Dacians and Getae, whom we now call Wallachs, because they are such good marksmen? The Roumanians are descended from the legions and colonists who were led into Dacia by Trajan and other emperors: they were called Wallachs from Pius of Flaccus (after a German pronunciation), but by us, because ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... any conscientious scruples. "Well, as soon as the ignorant chaw-bacon chap yelled out this, which naturally made everyone who heard it laugh, although they put the mistake down to the poor fellow's provincial pronunciation, he turns to the man who had previously instructed him and asks in a proud sort of way, as if seeking praise for his performance, 'Say, how did I ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... very pleasant, but the fact remains that Englishmen express surprise and pain at our most innocent idiosyncrasies. They correct our pronunciation and our misuse of words. They regret our nomadic habits, our shrill voices, our troublesome children, our inability to climb mountains or "do a little glacier work" (it sounds like embroidery, but means scrambling perilously over ice), our ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... her veil. She spoke English with scarcely any accent. Occasionally she arranged her phrases in an oddly foreign way; but her pronunciation could not be criticised. Old Dolliver, the stage driver, grinned broadly ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... courteous and not displeased to be a little lionised, for his delicacy is not of the most susceptible." He was "a tall, ungainly, uncouth man," in her opinion, "with great physical strength, a quick penetrating eye, a confident manner, and a disagreeable tone and pronunciation." In no place does he make anyone praise his voice, and, as he said, it reminded one Spanish woman of ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... The foreign pronunciation, Eric's amusement, Mae's confusion, were not lost upon the men. Their curiosity was piqued, their eyes and pride gratified. They sauntered leisurely past, only to turn a corner and quicken their steps again toward the bench where Eric and Mae were seated. ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... a little unnecessary stress upon the name to mark his pronunciation of it. "You play Beethoven? This is extremely interesting." He spoke to the earl, who rubbed his hands and nodded. The young first-violin tossed his chestnut-colored mane on one side with a gesture ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... potatoes, called "Radicals," planted in his garden because he did not like the name. He was further amused when we innocently asked him the best way to reach Hawick, pronouncing the name in two syllables which sounded like Hay-wick, while the local pronunciation was "Hoike." However, we soon reached that town and had a twelve-o'clock lunch at one of the inns, where we heard something of the principal annual event of the town, the "Common Riding," the occasion on which the officials rode ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... however, times when the obstinacy of the mean man looks very like the obstinacy of the great one; but if you look closely into the matter, you will always see that the obstinacy of the first is in the pronunciation of "I;" and of the second, in the pronunciation ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... as to indicate the pronunciation. The vowel of the accented syllable is marked by the grave accent (') if long, and by the ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... in the show at the U Sv Tomise, the age old tavern which had been making its own smoked black beer since the fifteenth century. And here Catherina with the assistance of revelers from neighboring tables taught him the correct pronunciation of Na zdravi! the Czech toast. It seemed required to go from heavy planked table to table practicing the new salutation to the accompaniment of the ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... already knew, in a way, Latin, Greek, Irish, French, Italian, Spanish, and what Dr. Knapp calls "the broken jargon" then current in England as gypsy. From a misshapen Welsh groom this queer lawyer's clerk learned Welsh pronunciation, and to the consternation of his employer, "turned Sir Edward from the door," and gladly admitted the petty versifier Parkerson who sold his sheets to the highest bidder in the streets; worse even than this was his audacity ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... the side of the river. Letters add to Mr. Carey will be immediately attended to." The cost of boarding and fees varied from L45 to L50 a year, according as "Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, or Sanskrit" lessons were included. "Particular attention will be paid to the correct pronunciation of the English language" was added for reasons which the mixed parentage of the pupils explains. Such was the first sign of a care for the Eurasians not connected with the army, which, as developed by Marshman and Mack, began in 1823 to take the form of the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... Kea-au. Often shortened in pronunciation to Ke-au, a fishing village in Puna near Hilo town. It now has a ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... Queen Victoria, God's representative on earth, had obstinately refused, at the eleventh hour, to make him a bishop. She had those pigheaded fits, and she was touchy about the bishops. She had liked Scrope on account of the excellence of his German pronunciation, but she had been irritated by newspaper paragraphs—nobody could ever find out who wrote them and nobody could ever find out who showed them to the old lady—anticipating his elevation. She had gone very red in the face and stiffened in the Guelphic manner whenever Scrope was mentioned, and so a ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... bloodshot and widely dilated. In approaching Henry, she showed a strange incapability of calculating her distances—she struck against the table near which he happened to be sitting. When she spoke, her articulation was confused, and her pronunciation of some of the longer words was hardly intelligible. Most men would have suspected her of being under the influence of some intoxicating liquor. Henry took a truer view—he said, as he placed a chair for her, 'Countess, I am afraid you have been working ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... getting into the carriage at Chesterfield, he said to his companion, "Now, Pigot, I'll spin a prologue for our play;" and before they reached Mansfield he had completed his task,—interrupting only once his rhyming reverie, to ask the proper pronunciation of the French word 'debut'; and, on being told it, exclaiming, "Aye, that will do for rhyme to ''new'.'"—'Life', p. 39. "The Prologue was spoken by G. Wylde, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... fresh articles of information concerning Greece which they have lately imported, would turn their minds to the language of the country. So strikingly similar to the ancient Greek is the modern Romaic as a written language, and so dissimilar in sound, that even a few general rules concerning pronunciation would be of most ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... believed that I spoke French and Italian better. The gentleman then spurred on his horse and accosted me, not in Portuguese, nor in French or Italian, but in the purest English that I ever heard spoken by a foreigner; it had, indeed, nothing of foreign accent or pronunciation in it; and had I not known, by the countenance of the speaker, that he was no Englishman, (for there is a peculiarity in the countenance, as everybody knows, which, though it cannot be described, is sure to betray ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... tendency is to overcome, to fight rather than assuage, though he is the champion of everything he loves. From the time he could form distinct sounds he has called me Barbara, and no amount of reasoning will make him do otherwise, while the imitation of his father's pronunciation of the word goes ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... to trace the Scottish names of these people, handed down as they have been from generation to generation, though their pronunciation is much altered, and in most instances given a French turn, as, for example, Gourdon for Gordon, Noel for Nowell, and many others. However, in a few cases the names are such as even the most ingenious French ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... to America in 1741, this letter, with its "guess at my maining," and another in which he has "lase" for "lease," suggest that, if his pronunciation may be judged from his spelling, he retained a rich Irish brogue. Certainly his Irish wit and good nature served him well in his dealing with the Indians. He was frequently useful in outwitting the French Indian-agents, and in maintaining the friendship of the red men for the English as against ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... the place looked that day from what it is now. Why, it was only known as Poketown! And it was the pokiest, most rubbishy, lackadaisical village I ever saw. Just think of its original name being lost by years of careless pronunciation! The people had even forgotten that sterling old patriot, Hubbard Polk, who first settled here and ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... The pronunciation of the vowels in Esperanto still seems to give some difficulty, for a correspondent queries the sounds of vowels ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 3 • Various
... routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down here—if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary for him when on duty, always to remain in that ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... great volubility to speak of his being a stranger in the land, and all men being strangers upon earth, and hoping to meet the good priest hereafter in the kingdom of Heaven. The priest seemed confounded, and abashed. Through the mist of a strange pronunciation he could recognise only here and there afamiliar word. He took out his snuff-box; and tried to quote a ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... period in the hair-lifting adventures of one Senorita Carmena, could think of no lovelier appellation when her darling came than the first portion of that sloe-eyed and restless lady's title, which she conceived to be baptismal; and in due course she had conferred it, together with her own pronunciation, on her child. A bold man stopping in at Uncle Clem's market, as Luke knew, had once tried to pronounce and expound the cognomen in a very different fashion; but he had been hustled unceremoniously from the place, and S'norta remained in undisturbed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of Greece, associated with one of the most engaging and most famous of Greek women. On this point, Mr. Goodchild continued at intervals to breathe a vein of classic fancy and eloquence exceedingly irksome to Mr. Idle, until it appeared that the honest English pronunciation of that Cumberland country shortened Aspatria into 'Spatter.' After this supplementary discovery, Mr. Goodchild ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... musicians to play, ourselves dancing and making many signs of friendship. At length there came ten canoes from the other islands, and two of them came so near the shore where we were that they talked with us, the other being in their boats a pretty way off. Their pronunciation was very hollow through the throat, and their speech such as we could not understand, only we allured them by friendly embracings and signs of courtesy. At length one of them, pointing up to the sun with his hand, would presently strike his breast so hard that we might hear ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... violates the laws of nations we recall this neutrality law and give full liberty to follow its own will. (Applause.) Now, in declaring this, Congress has prevented a war, because it has been pointed out to the people in what way that pronunciation of the law of nations is to be supported, and the enterprizing spirit of the people of the United States is too well known as its sympathy for the cause of Hungary is too decidedly expressed, not to impart a conviction to the Czar of Russia that though the United States ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... of the changes in pronunciation which have been brought about by affected people as well as careless and ignorant people. "'Tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true." But you cannot change it by spelling "balance" with two ls, or "sure" with an h. Be accurate in your spelling. Restrict yourself to such words as you can spell, ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... He said, 'Without doubt the Italian.' He then discussed the genius of the English language, and the merits of our poets and historians, read, and made me read, a passage of an English book, and then examined the etymology and pronunciation of several words. He has never been out of Italy, or further in it than Leghorn, talks of going to Rome, but says it is so difficult to leave his library. He is very pleasing, simple, and communicative, and it is extraordinary, with his wonderful ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... long form: Kingdom of Cambodia conventional short form: Cambodia local long form: Preahreacheanacha Kampuchea (phonetic pronunciation) local short form: Kampuchea former: Kingdom of Cambodia, Khmer Republic, Democratic Kampuchea, People's Republic of Kampuchea, ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... word vitality in the singing of a modern song, is one of the great elements of success, if not the greatest. Not an exaggerated form of pronunciation, but an intense, earnest, impressive way of bringing out the thought. It would be interesting to know what per cent of teachers and singers can read properly the words of a song; to know how many of them, or rather how few of them, have ever given this phase of ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... time she had addressed him by his name, and she did so with an hesitation that Derrick attributed to her uncertainty of the pronunciation. ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... long subsisted between etymology and pronunciation. It has been demanded, on one hand, that men should write as they speak; but, as it has been shown that this conformity never was attained in any language, and that it is not more easy to persuade men to agree exactly in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... but here observe an Eastern way of speaking, frequent among them, but not usual among us, where the word "only" or "alone" is not set down, but perhaps some way supplied in the pronunciation. Thus Josephus here says, that those of Jotapata slew seven of the Romans as they were marching off, because the Romans' retreat was regular, their bodies were covered over with their armor, and the Jews fought at some distance; his meaning is clear, that these ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... same root as the German genug, where the first g has been lost, and the latter softened and almost lost in its old English pronunciation, enow. The modern pronunciation is founded, as that of many other words is, upon an affected style of speech, ridiculed by Holofernes.[4] The word bread, for example, is almost universally called bred; but in Chaucer's poetry and indeed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... languages up to the Hebrew. 'Why, Sir, (said he,) you would not imagine that the French jour, day, is derived from the Latin dies, and yet nothing is more certain; and the intermediate steps are very clear. From dies, comes diurnus. Diu is, by inaccurate ears, or inaccurate pronunciation, easily confounded with giu; then the Italians form a substantive of the ablative of an adjective, and thence giurno, or, as they make it, giorno; which is readily contracted into giour, or jour' He observed, that the Bohemian language was true Sclavonick. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... essential. Daily drill in deep breathing, articulation, pronunciation, voice culture, gesture, and expression, are prerequisites to polished speech. Experienced public speakers of the best type know the ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... know the meaning of the simplest words, nor did he understand the use of language. Imitation was the factor in his first education. He learned the meaning of words by imitating definite articulate sounds made in connection with certain objects and activities. The pronunciation of words and their combination into whole phrases he acquired in the same imitative way. At first he simply repeated any word and sentence heard, thinking that this meant something to others. This manner of blind repetition and unintelligent imitation was, however, soon given up, and he ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... he answered, still without getting up. There was no other chair near the awning, so I had to remain standing. I told him my name, hoping that Hassan had either not done so already, or else that he might have so bungled the pronunciation as to make it unrecognizable. I detected no sign of recognition on ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Amorite "z" or "s" occasionally stands for a Hebrew "sh"; and the modern name "Seilun" has always presented the difficulty that the "s" is not the proper representative of the Hebrew "sh." Perhaps, as in other cases, the peasant pronunciation represents the Amorite rather than the Hebrew sound. Shiloh is remarkable for ...
— Egyptian Literature
... they occur in a French colony, where French usage naturally prevails, and to spell Oudjda in the French way, and koubba, for instance, in the English form of kubba, would cause needless confusion as to their respective pronunciation. It seems therefore simpler, in a book written for the ordinary traveller, to conform ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... singular character occurred a few days since, a protegee of Hannah More, and, as might be expected from that lady's publishing habits, rendered sufficiently conspicuous by her pen. She was a total stranger, apparently a German by her pronunciation of English, yet carefully avoiding to speak any foreign language. She was first found taking refuge under a haystack, apparently in a state of insanity, and determined to die there. The peasantry, who occasionally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... the working out of the pronunciation of the more difficult names and words will be the only preparation for reading The Spartan Twins needed by the average fifth grade class. The story can usually be read at sight in the ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins
... have also had constantly at hand Hepburn's Dictionary, the Dictionary of Towns and Roads, by Dr. W. N. Whitney, and Murray's Handbook of Japan, by B. H. Chamberlain. In accordance with these authorities, in the pronunciation of Japanese words the consonants are to be taken at their usual English values and the vowels at their values ...
— Japan • David Murray
... get Master Bolderwood to come an' be empire," declared Nuck, no farther out in his pronunciation of the word than ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... accounts, was born at Locksley, in the county of Nottingham, in the reign of King Henry II., and about the year of Christ 1160. His extraction was noble, and his true name was Robert Fitzoothes, which vulgar pronunciation corrupted into Robin Hood. He was frequently styled, and commonly reputed to have been Earl of Huntington, descending from Ralph Fitzoothes, a Norman, who came over to England with William Rufus; marrying Maud, daughter of Gilbert de Gaunt, Earl of Kyme and Lindsey, to which title in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... before any modern European literature had yet taken form, one is startled to find how little the Japanese written language has changed in the course of so many centuries. Allowing for a few obsolete words, and sundry slight changes of pronunciation, the ordinary Japanese reader to-day can enjoy these early productions of his native muse with about as little difficulty as the English reader finds in studying the poets of the Elizabethan era. Moreover, the refinement and the simple charm of the Many[o]sh[u] compositions have ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... the cloister of Dominican monks at Florence. There, where he was appointed by his superiors to give lessons in philosophy, the young novice had from the first to battle against the defects of a voice that was both harsh and weak, a defective pronunciation, and above all, the depression of his physical powers, exhausted as they were by ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the city of Paris, a splendid road and row of trees, which—I don't know why—is called the Shandeleezy, or Elysian Fields, in French: others, I have heard, call it the Shandeleery; but mine I know to be the correct pronunciation. In the middle of this Shandeleezy is an open space of ground, and a tent where, during the summer, Mr. Franconi, the French Ashley, performs with his horses and things. As everybody went there, and we were told it was quite ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... exclaimed Tom, in amazement. Then he laughed as he reverted to his father's efforts at correct pronunciation, and continued his story. Suddenly he was startled by seeing his mother snatch a stump of a fire-shovel from the hearth and brandish ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... (who had a great urbanity when well pleased, and the finest sense of humour) condescended to ask who had taught Mr. Warrington the language; and to express his opinion, that, for the pronunciation, the French ladies were by ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a plural mark: hero's for heroes, myrtle's for myrtles, Gorgons and Hydra's, etc." Now, in books printed about the time of Milton's the apostrophe was put in almost at random, and in all the cases cited is a misprint, except in the first, where it serves to indicate that the pronunciation was not heroes as it had formerly been.[364] In the "possessive singular of nouns already ending in s" Mr. Masson tells us, "Milton's general practice is not to double the s; thus, Nereus wrinkled look, Glaucus spell. The necessities of metre would naturally constrain to ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... class, Mr. MacRae?" said the master, handing him the book. He knew that the dominie was not interested in the art of reading beyond the point of correct pronunciation, and hence he hoped the class might get off easily. The dominie took the book reluctantly. What he desired was the "arith-MET-ic" class, and did not care to be "put off" with ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... a childish, alto voice, gabbling in a monotone. A phrase would be spoken, the voice would hesitate for just an instant, and then another, totally disconnected phrase would come. The enunciation and pronunciation would vary from phrase to phrase, but the tone remained essentially the same, drained of ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... they did not perceive the approach of their chief and his orderly; and Brant, with a sign to the latter, halted only a few paces from this central figure. His speech was a singular mingling of high-flown and exalted epithets, with inexact pronunciation and occasional lapses ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... it, and Doolittle gave her the correct pronunciation with a charming smile which ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... rule of speaking; and was contented to reserve to myself the knowledge of the proper rules and reasons for them. Still we say Orcivii, and Matones and Otones, Coepiones, sepulchra, coronas, lacrymas, because that pronunciation is always sanctioned by the ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... dress, her unbound hair, her crude forms of speech and soft, drawling intonation—such as the throaty, unvarying pronunciation of "the" as though it were "ther," and "a" like "er"—which sounded so deliciously odd to his New England ears, could not erase from his mind the impression that she did not belong in the picture. To be ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... circumstances or in any language have talked as fluently as the policeman who stopped me. My French family were very nice to me, and we got on splendidly together after they discovered that I did not mind them laughing at my pronunciation. After two months, during which I had attacked the language vigorously, Nina came from Paris to join us. I expected that she would find my accent amusing, but I made a mistake. What my mother had once mentioned to me as her awkward ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... laughing, then, at her pronunciation of the Gaelic when she carelessly rose from the piano, and, in doing so, directed one glance to him that made him quail? The foolish piece went on. She was more bright, vivacious, coquettish than ever: how could she have such spirits in view of the long separation that lay on his heart ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... every verse which we call heroic, was either not known, or not always practised in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses which are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make otherwise. We can only say, that he lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at first. We must be children before we grow men. There was an Ennius, and in process of time a Lucilius and a Lucretius, before Virgil and Horace; even after Chaucer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... accent, though uncouth enough, sounds yet kindly in my ear; for I have never yet forgotten the desolate effect produced on my infant organs, when I heard on all sides your slow and broad northern pronunciation, which was to me the tone of a foreign land. I am sensible I myself have since that time acquired Scotch in perfection, and many a Scotticism withal. Still the sound of the English accentuation comes to my ears as the tones of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... my darling, and it ought to be 'kem' and 'bet'," said Hatty, with such an affected pronunciation that Sophy and Fanny both burst ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... ch and j are often sounded as in English, not as in Italian. Some traces of such pronunciation I think there are, as in Coja, Carajan, and in the Chinese name Vanchu (occurring only in Ramusio, supra, p. 99). But the scribe of the original work being a Tuscan, the spelling is in the main Tuscan. The sound of the Qu ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... harness, to hitch—to think, to guess—to do, to fix—to carry on any business, to run—barmaid, bar-tender—public house, saloon—many, quite a few—and pages might be so filled. Doubtless the language, the idioms vary more and more yearly, and probably the pronunciation also. You do meet Americans, travelled ones, who have no nasal twang, but otherwise the nationality, partly by that, partly by the way occasional words are pronounced, is easily recognized. Some of the Americans seem to forget that England was the birthplace of the English language. ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... in the pronunciation of a word led to an amiable contest between Lord Campbell and a learned Q.C. In an action to recover damages to a carriage the counsel called the vehicle a "brougham," pronouncing both syllables of the word. Lord Campbell pompously ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... Bogue, Fleet Street. 1852. Mr. Reach was very particular about the pronunciation of his name. Being a native of Inverness, the last vowel was guttural. One day, dining with Douglas Jerrold, who insisted on addressing him as Mr. Reek or Reech, "No," said the other; "my name is neither Reek nor Reech,but Reach," "Very well," said ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... The greatest latitude I take is in the letter y when it concludes a word and the first syllable of the next begins with a vowel. Neither need I have called this a latitude, which is only an explanation of this general rule—that no vowel can be cut off before another when we cannot sink the pronunciation of it, as he, she, me, I, &c. Virgil thinks it sometimes a beauty to imitate the licence of the Greeks, and leave two vowels opening on each other, as in that verse ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... Mr. Berger came twice every week, and sat beside the big chair, correcting Katy's exercises and practising her in the verbs and pronunciation. He was a lively little old Frenchman, and knew how ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... aristocracy—so he said. Nevertheless, he greatly admired his elegant wife in her faded beauty. He liked to hear her speak, and he made some effort to copy her "genteel pronunciation." He also, in his inmost heart, admired Maggie as a girl of spirit, although not a beautiful one. He had his own ideas with regard to female loveliness, and, like all men, was impressed and ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... himself regarding all movements of his time than the fact that he also joined issue in the camp of the humanists. In 1528 there were published by Froben (the chief of the firm of Johannes Froben had just died) two dialogues in one volume from Erasmus's hand: one about the correct pronunciation of Latin and Greek, and one entitled Ciceronianus or On the Best Diction, i.e. in writing and speaking Latin. Both were proofs that Erasmus had lost nothing of his liveliness and wit. The former treatise was purely philological, and as such has had great influence; the other was satirical ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... the pronunciation of all words such as Liang, Kiang, etc., is nearer one syllable than two. For purposes of euphony, however, without which the lines would be harsh and unpoetical, I have invariably made two syllables of ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... leaves the room, while the others decide on some word, the name of a thing for choice (such as tale, tail), which has one pronunciation but two or three different meanings and perhaps spellings. They then sit in a circle or line and the other player is called in, his object being, by means of questions put in turn to each player, to discover what the ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... a beam of energy through my head and I heard words, sentences, a rapid expounding of alien grammar and pronunciation which sank deep into my brain. My memory was being ineradicably written upon with all the power needed to make of me whatever they wanted. But apparently their only purpose now was to give me a complete understanding of their language. An ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... one of the best teachers in Europe, who consented to break through his usual rules and give her lessons in the pretty home she had decided on. He would also charge himself with selecting a teacher of the language, who should make her pronunciation of the sweet Tuscan perfect as her voice, which ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... of Graham's, and comes every Friday evening to read English. He finds the pronunciation rather a difficulty. He has quite a library, from which he has selected as a suitable book to lend to Graham, William Penn's Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims. He is making a cover for the harmonium out of two calf skins so that ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... Nation in their ordinary Speech is altogether different from that of every other People, as we may see even in the Welsh and Scotch, [who [1]] border so near upon us. By the Tone or Accent, I do not mean the Pronunciation of each particular Word, but the Sound of the whole Sentence. Thus it is very common for an English Gentleman, when he hears a French Tragedy, to complain that the Actors all of them speak in a Tone; and therefore he very wisely prefers his own Country-men, not considering that a Foreigner ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... slighter punishments are made is peculiar to the Burmans, and, as nearly as I can make it out, according to our pronunciation, is called "toung." The delinquent is obliged to kneel down, and a man stands over him with a bent elbow and clenched fist. He first rapidly strikes him on the head with his elbow, and then slides it down until his knuckles repeat the blow, the elbow at the same ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... pronunciation of this word approximates nearer to the sound of the French cuit ["twice baked"] the t being omitted in ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... appeared presently to strike him, and he asked of a rustic he met in the street what was going on; his accent being that of one to whom English pronunciation ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... the heathen Nine, whose fostering care has ever been devoted to the tutelage of the professors of sweet sounds; and therefore Waters was a high authority, declared in the peculiar patois attendant upon the pronunciation of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... wherby a swete and pleasaunt modulacion or tunablenes of wordes is kepte, because some are spoken wyth a sharpe tenure or accent, some wyth a flatte, some strayned out. This grace specially perteineth to a turnyng of y^e voyce in pleasaunte pronunciation. ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... altogether, as I did the first, so that the lost planet is irrecoverable, as the inscription is now defaced. Note the o for e in adolescentia; so also we constantly find u for o; showing, together with much other incontestable evidence of the same kind, how full and deep the old pronunciation of Latin always remained, and how ridiculous our English mincing of the vowels would have sounded ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... is not good for metre. Even when an actress speaks her lines as lines, and does not drop into prose by slipping here and there a syllable, she spoils the tempo by inordinate length of pronunciation. Verse cannot keep upon the wing without a certain measure in the movement of the pinion. Verse is ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... the children mispronounced a large percentage of them. I then announced that, the next time I visited the school, I would test the pupils again on these words and others like them, and issue "certificates of correct pronunciation" to all who were entitled to them. I found, on the next visit, that nearly all the children could secure these certificates. These tests created a great impetus in the direction of correct pronunciation and language. Some teachers, from mistaken kindness, ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... rather difficult to follow, chiefly because of the change in the fall of the accent. Ayesha, of course, talked with the accent of her contemporaries, whereas we have only tradition and the modern accent to guide us as to the exact pronunciation. "My Holly, it cannot be. Were I to show mercy to those wolves, your lives would not be safe among this people for a day. Thou knowest them not. They are tigers to lap blood, and even now they hunger for your lives. How ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... drawn, the lamps were lit and the fire was burning brightly. I was reading an evening paper—we get the 5.30 edition at the moment of publication, though we are thirty miles from London—and I had just found Prezymyzle (my own pronunciation) on the map for the thousandth time. Helen says that quite in the early days of the war she was told it ought to be pronounced Perimeeshy, but that seems impossible. Rosie declares for Prozmeel. Still she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... She's as beautiful as Hebe," and gave the name of the goddess the very best pronunciation, according to ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... occoopyin' herself evenin's,—that—is, if so be she a'n't smart enough to finish up all her work in the daytime. Edoocation is the great business of the Institoot. Amoosements are objec's of a secondary natur', accordin' to my v'oo." [The unspellable pronunciation of this word is the touchstone ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... favour of Esperanto—its full vocalic endings. On the other hand, many words in Idiom Neutral present a mutilated appearance to the eye, and, what is a much greater sin in an international language, offer grave difficulties of pronunciation to speakers of many nations. Words ending with a double consonant are very frequent, e.g. nostr patr; and these will be unpronounceable for many nations, e.g. for an Italian or a Japanese. Euphony is one of the strongest ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... place he wished to go and fly back again whenever he cared to. It was necessary, however, to learn by heart the way to pronounce the magic word, because a bird would have no way to carry a paper with it, and Kiki would be unable to resume his proper shape if he forgot the word or its pronunciation. ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... and the restoration of foreign accents is accompanied by awkward attempts to revert to the foreign pronunciation of these words, which of course much lessens their usefulness in conversation. Sometimes this, as in nuance, or timbre* practically deprives us of a word which most of us are unable to pronounce correctly; sometimes it is merely absurd, as in 'envelope', where most people ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... less congenial field of art: there she may now be said to rage, and with special severity in all that touches dialect; so that in every novel the letters of the alphabet are tortured, and the reader wearied, to commemorate shades of mis-pronunciation. Now spelling is an art of great difficulty in my eyes, and I am inclined to lean upon the printer, even in common practice, rather than to venture abroad upon new quests. And the Scots tongue has an orthography of its own, lacking neither "authority ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... (whose name is sometimes written "huanaca," though the pronunciation is the same with "guanaco" or "guanaca") is larger than the llama, and for a long time was considered merely as the wild llama, or the llama run wild, in which you will perceive an essential distinction. It is neither, but an animal of specific difference. It exists in a wild state in the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... believed himself to be, an eloquent speaker, and his efforts at rhetorical display, added to his French pronunciation of English words, became a source of great amusement to the men. He was wont to harangue them, as if they were about to enter upon a sanguinary battle. The old stone walls of the peaceful farm were pictured ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... 25th of June we were ordered to cook three days' rations. The pronunciation of this word puzzled me no little. Everybody said rash-ons, while I, though I had never before had occasion to use the word, had thought of it as rations. I think I called it rations once or twice before I got straight. I remembered Dr. Frost's advice to hold fast any slightest clew, and felt that ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... is after the Russian model. The author hopes it will not be difficult to convince his countrymen that the shortest form of spelling is the best, especially when it represents the pronunciation more accurately than does the old method. A frontier justice once remarked, when a lawyer ridiculed his way of writing ordinary words, that a man was not properly educated who could spell a word in only one way. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... its plurals most irregularly, but usually by an initial inflection. It has a certain crude and primitive grammar, but in point of orthoepy is extremely difficult. With our letters I can hardly hope to give an accurate conception of its pronunciation. As nearly as possible I write its words as they sounded to my ear when carefully spoken for my instruction by intelligent natives. It ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... long form: State of Qatar conventional short form: Qatar local long form: Dawlat Qatar local short form: Qatar note: closest approximation of the native pronunciation falls between cutter and gutter, ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Squrake.—It is difficult to decide upon either the spelling or the pronunciation of this word. On Smith's map it is located on the south side of James river, and about fifteen or twenty miles below Jamestown, and is spelt Waraskorack, and on page 59 he spells it Waraskoyack; Fry and Jefferson locate it on Burwell's bay, and call it Warnicqueack. ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various
... Versailles fountains; but it was essentially to be from the Kitchen-tap—or even from the sewer. Homer was more familiar with it thundering on the precipices, or lisping on the yellow sands of time-forgotten Mediterranean islands. Which pronunciation do you prefer for his often-recurring and ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... proud man who has humbled himself in vain. Atterbury became the most factious and pertinacious of all the opponents of the government. In the House of Lords his oratory, lucid, pointed, lively, and set off with every grace of pronunciation and of gesture, extorted the attention and admiration even of a hostile majority. Some of the most remarkable protests which appear in the journals of the peers were drawn up by him; and in some of the bitterest of those pamphlets which called on the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... interposed, and said that the provinces of Scotland, like those of England, had their different modes of pronunciation. ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... at sooart." He is partial to long "Oh's," and "Ah's" and solemn breathings; and sometimes tells you more by a look or a subdued, calmly-moulded groan than by dozens of sentences. He spices his sermons considerably with the Lancashire dialect; isn't at all nice about aspirates, inflection, or pronunciation; thinks that if you have got hold of a good thing the best plan is to out with it, and to out with it any way, rough or smooth, so that it is understood. He never stood at philological trifles in his life, and never will do. Those who listen to him regularly think nothing of his singularities ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... friend upon whom to rely for either aid or advice in an impoverishing section, he entered upon the fierce combat then in progress for the indispensable bread of life. Among the waifs of his neighborhood in 1866, he learned the alphabet and acquired an imperfect pronunciation of monosyllables. In efforts to improve his meager stock of knowledge during the succeeding five years, he so industriously applied himself that in January, 1871, he entered a day school, while in session, for the first time, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... later, the shortest verse in the Bible was upon her lips. Then she ceased reading aloud, and the student saw her eyes hastily, as if she were unable to endure the momentary delay of pronunciation, scanning the story to ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... Tuscan before Dante had lifted it into a classic, and neither, it seems to me, will quite fit a patois/, which is not properly a dialect, but rather certain archaisms, proverbial phrases, and modes of pronunciation, which maintain themselves among the uneducated side by side with the finished and universally accepted language. Norman French, for example, or Scotch down to the time of James VI., could hardly be called patois, while I should be half inclined to name the Yankee a lingo rather than ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... (Harakat), because they move or lead on, as it were, one letter to another. They are three in number, a (Fathah), i (Kasrah), u (Zammah), originally sounded as the corresponding English vowels in bat, bit and butt respectively, but in certain cases modifying their pronunciation under the influence of a neighbouring consonant. When the necessity made itself felt to represent them in writing, especially for the sake of fixing the correct reading of the Koran, they were rendered by additional signs, placed above or beneath the consonant, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... nobody in the known world. But I do think that an uninteresting Yankee girl is the most uninteresting of all created objects. Southern girls have almost always tender voices and soft manners. Arrant nonsense comes from their lips with such sweet syllabic flow, such little ripples of pronunciation and musical interludes, that you are attracted and held without the smallest regard to what they are saying. I could sit for hours and hear two of them chattering over a checker-board for the pleasure of the silvery, tinkling music of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the Roman with some of the German dotted letters added, and the continental sounds are given to the letters. All words are phonetically spelled, so that there are none of the difficulties of orthography and pronunciation to be encountered which are so formidable in most ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... knew it was "the tarpauling" that was meant. He could not be mistaken about that; for, even had he been ignorant of the sailor's pronunciation of the words, the latter at that moment stood pointing to the piece of tarred canvas spread upright between the oars; and which had formerly served as a covering for the after-hatch of the Pandora. William did not equally understand why his ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... choralis, sc. cantus; the final e is added to show the Ger. pronunciation chor[a]l), a term in music used by English writers to indicate the hymn-tunes composed or adopted for use in church by the German reformers. German writers, however, apply the terms "Choral" and "Chorale-gesang," as Luther himself would apply ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... added difficulty in the analysis of myths, as not only were the names of the divinities and of localities expressed in terms in the highest degree metaphorical, but they were at times obscured by an affected pronunciation, devised to ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... will I give him for his dinner to-day, Norrse?"—(impossible to persuade the English alphabet to disclose Mrs. Mangan's pronunciation of this word)—his hostess would say, drifting largely into Larry's room, and seating herself on ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... peculiarity, a stammer or a lisp, a Northumbrian burr or an Irish brogue, a stoop or a shuffle. "If a man," said Johnson, "hops on one leg, Foote can hop on one leg." Garrick, on the other hand, could seize those differences of manner and pronunciation, which, though highly characteristic, are yet too slight to be described, Foote, we have no doubt, could have made the Haymarket theatre shake with laughter by imitating a conversation between a Scotchman and a Somersetshire man. But Garrick ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... the French term the beau monde, there are little traits that reveal those who have entered it,—certain tricks of phrase, certain modes of expression,—even the pronunciation of familiar words, even the modulation of an accent. A man of the most refined bearing may not have these peculiarities; a man, otherwise coarse and brusque in his manner, may. The slang of the beau monde is quite apart from the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... varied. They are not straitened and contracted as if produced in a narrow medium, but extending through a considerable register, range through a variety of intonations. The letter L, almost impossible for those to pronounce, who have not acquired the pronunciation in their infancy, has nothing harsh in its sound. The ear receives from it an impression similar to that which is made upon the fingers by the touch of a thick woolen velvet, rough, but at the same time, yielding. The union of jarring consonants being rare, and ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... to joy and sunshine. Her mind seemed so vast, each hour gave him fresh surprises in the perception of her infinite knowledge, while she charmed his fancy by her delicate modes of expression and un-English perfect pronunciation, no ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... him 'ave his gallops," said the little man, who in his moments of excitement would sometimes fall away from that exact pronunciation which had been one of the studies of his life, "and have measured his stride. I think I know what pace means. Of course I'm not going to answer for the 'orse. He's a temper, but if things go favourably, no animal that ever showed on the Downs was more likely ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... own voluble way, letting fly vigorously at the inventor of "larnin'." The result was that Joss learned to read and write before the voyage was over. It is true there were few people outside the forecastle that could tell what it was all about, unless they studied very closely his eccentric pronunciation and the wild scrawl of his writing. He never went far enough to get even a second mate's certificate. He thought it an unnecessary waste of time, seeing that he intended to leave the sea as soon as he could attain a pilot's ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... answered, (with a very decent accent which I had cultivated by the daily use of a mild decoction of alum-water—an application which I can cordially recommend to Americans who do not naturally possess that peculiar "pucker" of the lips essential to the correct pronunciation of the French language.) ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various
... came the English rule in what had been New Amsterdam and with it British settlers and a new language. So the Bossen Bouwerie became Green Wich (later clipped in pronunciation to Grinnich), the Green Village, and a peaceful, remote little settlement it remained for ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... book; and, more than this, its language had ceased to be generally intelligible. The language of India had changed since the Veda was composed, and learned commentaries were necessary in order to explain to the people, then living, the true purport, nay, the proper pronunciation, of their sacred hymns. But more than this. In certain exegetical compositions, which are generally comprised under the name of Sutras, and which are contemporary with, or even anterior to, the treatises on the theological statistics just ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... America as well as England, in a most trying position. Take for example my American captain and my English lady. I have spelt the word conduce, as uttered by the American captain, as cawndooce, to suggest (very roughly) the American pronunciation to English readers. Then why not spell the same word, when uttered by Lady Cicely, as kerndewce, to suggest the English pronunciation to American readers? To this I have absolutely no defence: I can only plead that an author who lives in England necessarily ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... mates. He shakes his head dubiously over the outlook for the man Johnson, who is boat-puller in the same boat with him. Johnson has been guilty of speaking his mind too freely, and has collided two or three times with Wolf Larsen over the pronunciation of his name. Johansen he thrashed on the amidships deck the other night, since which time the mate has called him by his proper name. But of course it is out of the question that Johnson should ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... began with the first verse of Genesis, and went straight through, to the last verse of the Apocalypse; hard names, numbers, Levitical law, and all; and began again at Genesis the next day. If a name was hard, the better the exercise in pronunciation,—if the chapter was tiresome, the better lesson in patience,—if loathsome, the better lesson in faith that there was some use in its being so outspoken. After our chapters, (from two to three a day, according to their length, the first thing after breakfast, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... picture crumbles to pieces, that does not alter the fact that the angels made it lovely." (Her slight accent, because it made the pronunciation of each word more careful, gave her speech a quaint suggestion of instruction that perhaps she did not intend.) "The idea is painted on our hearts in just the same way; it is the best thing we can think ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... Alexander the Grammarian, to be un-reprovable myself, and not reproachfully to reprehend any man for a barbarism, or a solecism, or any false pronunciation, but dextrously by way of answer, or testimony, or confirmation of the same matter (taking no notice of the word) to utter it as it should have been spoken; or by some other such close and indirect admonition, handsomely and civilly to tell him ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... the least onerous, being to imbue some ninety sets of brains with a due tincture of what they considered a most complicated and difficult science, that of the English language; and to drill ninety tongues in what, for them, was an almost impossible pronunciation—the lisping and hissing dentals ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... laughing and a gayety which are indicated by the same oath repeated in tones corresponding with the satisfaction he is then enjoying. This making the series of impressions a man passes through comprehensible by a single word, varied in pronunciation and utterance, is very like the language of animals, which is always the same, and the significance of which is given by variety of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... in his jargin, "take a glas of Madere viz me, mi ladi?" And he looked round, as if he'd igsackly hit the English manner and pronunciation. ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... legend; but the name was retained, partly as a geographical distinction of a large tract of country, though it was sometimes called the Edwards Ranch, after its present proprietor, and after the American fashion of pronunciation. ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... structure of the story, and the probability of the incidents, the novel is open to criticism; but such is the fascination that hangs over it, that it is impossible to criticize. To do this would be as ungracious as to correct the language and pronunciation of an old friend who revives by his conversation the fading memories of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... to do it, on proposing the health of the King, the Royal Family, the Army, and Nation. Not content with doing it in French, he drew out of his pocket a document written for him in German, for he did not know the language, and read it with the most extraordinary pronunciation. The English officers all admired the way the Germans kept their countenance notwithstanding ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... those who are deficient in this desirable qualification. Many, however, entertain very erroneous views of the nature of politeness. It does not consist in putting on an air, a simper, a strut, or a bow. Neither is it to be manifested in high-flown words, or a fashionable pronunciation. Many young persons who can make very accomplished bows, and go through all the postures and attitudes of the schools, are still ignorant of the first principles of genuine politeness, and violate them every day. Politeness ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... the year the scholars were examined in the presence of a congregation assembled for public worship—a mode of instruction which gave a laudable excitement to the children, by means of which they acquired a firmness of mind, a clear, distinct pronunciation, and an accuracy in their delivery, which was very gratifying to the hearers, whilst it gave to the parents and relations an opportunity of observing their progress by the system of education. Through this medium, also, many a truth has been taught, many an impression made, where preaching ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... believed fully in the utterances of crazy beldames, who saw ghosts, and who believed he was attended by a familiar demon? Then follows a catalogue of moral offences and defects of character, all taken from Cardan's own confessions, and a pronunciation by Naude that the man who says he never lies, must be of all liars the greatest; the charge of mendacity being driven home by references to Cardan's alleged miraculous comprehension of the classic tongues in a single night, and his pretended knowledge of a cure for phthisis. ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... passed a fountain one day, at which a washerwoman was washing her linen, and he stopped to talk to her, and asked her, among other questions, if she had always been a washerwoman. No, she replied, she had been a blia (nurse) once. He was struck by her pronunciation of the word blia and walked on; but presently he said, "I thought that that word was pronounced bala" and, when I explained that there were two words—blia which meant a nurse, and bala, which came from the same root as our "bailiff," and meant a ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... in her own room, and after a deal of trouble, succeeded in coaxing Sal to stay there too, listening while she read to her from her little Bible. But the reading was perplexing business, for Sal constantly corrected her pronunciation, or stopped her while she expounded Scripture, and at last in a fit of impatience Mary tossed the book into the crazy creature's lap, asking her ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes |
