"Pronunciation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He was a cross-grained man, oppressed by a large family, and he resented the superciliousness which he fancied he saw in Philip. He sneered at Philip because he was better educated than himself, and he mocked at Philip's pronunciation; he could not forgive him because he spoke without a cockney accent, and when he talked to him sarcastically exaggerated his aitches. At first his manner was merely gruff and repellent, but as he discovered that Philip had no gift for accountancy he took pleasure in humiliating ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... bathe in the sail-bath. Church parade at ten; great cleaning and brushing up for it. Short service, read by the Major, and two hymns. Then a long lazy lie on deck with Williams, learning Dutch from a distracting grammar by a pompous old pedant. Pronunciation maddening, and the explanations made it worse. Long afternoon, too, doing the same. No exercising; just water, feed, and a little grooming at 4.30, then work over for the day. Kept the ship lively combing my roan's mane; thought he would jump into ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... about high society. She was not sure what scathing meant, or what the pronunciation of it was. She rather inclined to ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... dialogue I repeat textually almost; and, it may be conceived, it was entertaining in a high degree. 'Sheemin dee Fur' was the exact phonetic pronunciation, and the whole scene lingers pleasantly ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... 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 word is. His questions must take the form, "How do you like it?" "When do you ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... 156: Kea-au. Often shortened in pronunciation to Ke-au, a fishing village in Puna near Hilo town. It now has a landing ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... laughing at his cousin over the big man's shoulder, "is Jacques. He has another, but, as nobody ever uses it, it isn't to the point, and I never was good at pronunciation. He is a French Canadian, with a dash of Yankee thrown in. He is of a peaceable disposition except when roused, when all his friends find it advisable to give him a ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... 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 ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... 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 tongue finds impossible to alter, ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... Spanish pronunciation of the Japanese Jodo (also written Jiodo, and Jodo), the name of one of the Buddhist sects which flourish in Japan. It was founded in 1174 A.D.—by one Honen, according to Griffis; by Genku, according to Rein. Iyeyasu and his successors were adherents and benefactors of this sect. "Its ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... is all changed now. The war begot a spirit of independence and enterprise. The feeling now is, that a youth must cut loose from his old surroundings to enable him to get up in the world. There is now such a commingling of the people that particular idioms and pronunciation are no longer localized to any great extent; the country has filled up "from the centre all around to the sea"; railroads connect the two oceans and all parts of the interior; maps, nearly perfect, of every part of the country are now furnished ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... musical; she spoke in low tones and her pronunciation and general demeanor betrayed the fact that gentle blood ran in ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... arise merely from the intrusion of French terms, in consequence of the Norman conquest, because that large portion of our language (including the articles, pronouns, etc.), which is Saxon has also undergone great transformations by abbreviation, new modes of pronunciation, spelling, and various corruptions, so as to be unlike both ancient and modern German. They who now speak German, if brought into contact with their Teutonic ancestors of the ninth century, would be quite unable to converse ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... be despised as a rival, this "snowy-banded, dilettant, delicate-handed priest." In the first place, he was a really nice, honorable young fellow, with no much worse faults than a pedantically correct pronunciation of the unaccented vowels; in the second place, he was considerably taller than the race of curates usually runs; and in the third place, he had a handsome allowance from his mother, and "expectations" on a very grand scale indeed. Miss Wedmore, if she ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... IV," and that they are having a small theater constructed "without the knowledge of bigots and small minds." Reformers and moralists introduce theatrical art into the education of children; Mme. de Genlis composes comedies for them, considering these excellent for the securing of a good pronunciation, proper self-confidence and the graces of deportment. The theater, indeed, then prepares man for society as society prepares him for the theater; in either case he is on display, composing his attitude and tone of voice, and playing ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... His name, as she uttered it, always stirred him vaguely. He was fond of finding out the reasons of things, and had long ago decided that this inward stir was due to her fine pronunciation. His other intimates ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... absolutely enchanted, notwithstanding he had not understood all that Corinne had said; but her gestures, the sound of her voice, and her pronunciation, charmed him.—It was the first time that any grace which was not French had produced an effect upon him. But indeed the great celebrity of Corinne at Rome put him a little in the way of what he should think ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... references to the splendid "analytical" forehead, which must have been a striking feature in her face, occur as often in his letters as admiring allusions to her pretty dimpled hands, or playful jokes about her droll French pronunciation. Her miniature by Daffinger,[*] taken in the prime of her beauty, gives an idea of great energy, strength of will, and intelligence. She is dark, with a decided mouth, and rather thick lips as red as a child's. Her hair is black, and is plainly braided at each ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... acquisition of languages was his chief pursuit. He 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 in contending against a wealthy ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... and so on, originates from the eternal words of the Veda could not in any way be proved, since the letters perish as soon as they are produced (i.e. pronounced). These perishable letters are moreover apprehended as differing according to the pronunciation of the individual speaker. For this reason we are able to determine, merely from the sound of the voice of some unseen person whom we hear reading, who is reading, whether Devadatta or Yaj/n/adatta or some other man. And it cannot be maintained that this apprehension of difference regarding ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... examples of Shakespeare's fondness for joking on musical matters. Peter's reply to the Third Musician, 'You are the singer; I will say for you,' may be a just reflection on Mr James Soundpost's lack of words, or perhaps indicates that the pronunciation of singers even in that musical age was no better than it ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... and the harmonizing of grammatical discords which were disregarded before that period, and, on the other hand, the retention of the superfluous final e, (once the e of prolongation,) and of the l in the contractions of "would," in accordance with a pronunciation which prevailed in England until 1700 and later, all point to this date, which is also indicated by various other internal proofs to which attention has been heretofore sufficiently directed.[mm] The punctuation, too, which, as Mr. Collier announced in "Notes and Emendations," etc., ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Venus bearing south-west by west, distant about four leagues. As we drew near a great number of canoes came off to us. Their first enquiries were if we were tyos, which signifies friends; and whether we came from Pretanie (their pronunciation of Britain) or from Lima: they were no sooner satisfied in this than they crowded on board in vast numbers, notwithstanding our endeavours to prevent it, as we were working the ship in; and in less than ten minutes the deck ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... 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 brought her food, of course soon gave her a name, and, as she was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... so much in character, that it appeared to the orator quite a different passage. He now understood so well how much grace and dignity action adds to the best oration that he thought it a small matter to premeditate and compose, though with the utmost care, if the pronunciation and propriety of gesture were not attended to. Upon this he built himself a subterraneous study which remained to our times. Thither he repaired every day to form his action and exercise his voice; and he would often stay ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... taste, so visible in the manners of the people, has also affected the language, and a number of French words and forms of expression, which have filtered through society, from the higher to the lower classes, are now in general use. The spelling, however, is made to conform to Swedish pronunciation, and one is amused at finding on placards such words as ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... understood English. The gentleman, after looking towards me once or twice, politely accosted me in very good English; I remember I wished to God that I could speak French as well; his fluency and correct pronunciation impressed me for the first time with a due notion of the cosmopolitan character of the capital I was in; it was my first experience of that skill in living languages I afterwards found to be so ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... allied in sound as well as in sense. Mr. FECHTER evidently regards them as completely identical; and in his acting, as in his pronunciation, uniformly prefers the former to the latter. He has recently exemplified this by his personation of CLAUDE MELNOTTE, in that most tawdry specimen of the cotton-velvet drama, the LADY OF LYONS. This melancholy event took place a few nights ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... a kettle of water with a board over it. A stream of water comes from the organ. There is a horse near which kicks or bites me. Again:—I play on the piano to a friend who is a German scholar the opening theme of the Tristan and Isolde Prelude. My friend tells me the pronunciation of the title of the opera and it sounds to me like Froebel. That the name of the world-famous music drama, the apotheosis of passion, should be transformed to that of the notable child educator is ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... 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 it over ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... 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 ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... sort of antelope. But first let us say something of the pronunciation of this word chamois. It is often pronounced as if it were spelled sham'my. This is, perhaps, the easiest mode. But it would be nearer to the French mode to pronounce it sham-wah, the last a having the sound ...
— The Nursery, July 1877, XXII. No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... 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 to do the trick. Is there ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... and overbearing. When the lads used to assemble in their greges in hall, Harry found himself alone in the midst of that little flock of boys; they raised a great laugh at him when he was set on to read Latin, which he did with the foreign pronunciation taught to him by his old master, the Jesuit, than which he knew no other. Mr. Bridge, the tutor, made him the object of clumsy jokes, in which he was fond of indulging. The young man's spirit was chafed, and his vanity mortified; and he found himself, for some time, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... quick and staccato, his 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
... names have been given an arbitrary pronunciation by that tyrant—the fashion of the day. There is a rule for each class of society, by which all within those respective circles is bound, unless its members wish to make themselves remarkable. Amongst the "Upper Ten" the name ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... 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 them, to any solemn ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... that the end of each section suggests the beginning of the next one. It resembles the versus memoriales found in old-fashioned grammars. But the most convincing proof of all is to be found in the changes which Greek pronunciation went through between the ages of Homer and Peisistratos. "At the time when these poems were composed, the digamma (or w) was an effective consonant, and figured as such in the structure of the verse; at the time when they were committed to writing, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... girl acquitted herself, and the animadversions or commendations of Miss Scatcherd on the performance. It was English history: among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: at the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention to stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. Even in that obscure position, Miss Scatcherd continued to make her an object of constant notice: she was continually addressing to her such phrases ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... next place we may observe that, where the words are not monosyllables, we often make them so, as much as lies in our power, by our rapidity of pronunciation; as it generally happens in most of our long words which are derived from the Latin, where we contract the length of the syllables, that gives them a grave and solemn air in their own language, to make them more proper for despatch, and more conformable to the genius of our tongue. This ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... were most remarkable in all things. One day while he read at table, the corrector, by mistake, bid him read a word with a false quantity, and he readily obeyed, though he knew the error. When others told him he ought notwithstanding to have given it the right pronunciation, his answer was, "It matters not how a word is pronounced, but to practise on all occasions humility and obedience is of the greatest importance." He was so perfectly mortified, and dead to his senses, that ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... one is in love with her, and she has the greatest success. So I can't think, Mamma, why you have always told me never to do any of these things, when you want me to be a success so much. Her voice is dreadfully shrill, and such an odd pronunciation, but no one seems to mind that. I rather like her, she is so jolly but some of the women of the party won't speak to her, except to say disagreeable things. Jane Roose is here, she has been here since she left Nazeby (Violet is at the sea), and she came ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... Greek friends and converts. In a controversy with an Oxford scholar, conducted in the open air, under the Martyrs' Memorial in that centre of careless professors, Gowles had spoken of "Nicodemus," "Eubulus," and "Stephanas." His unmannerly antagonist jeering at these slips of pronunciation, Gowles uttered his celebrated and crushing retort, "Did Paul know Greek?" The young man, his opponent, went ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... Doort-yay—means Dorothea. Mr. Littlepage uses a sort of corruption of the pronunciation. I well remember a fortune-teller of that name, in Albany; though it could not have been the Doortje ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... something like what Synge did for the Irish; he needs to find a form that will express the racial spirit by symbols from within rather than by symbols from without, such as the mere mutilation of English spelling and pronunciation. He needs a form that is freer and larger than dialect, but which will still hold the racial flavor; a form expressing the imagery, the idioms, the peculiar turns of thought, and the distinctive humor and pathos, too, of ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... could do that,' said Lucilla. 'I believe I know what other people do, and my languages are fresh from the Continent. Ought I to give you a specimen of my pronunciation?' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... corrupted into Mackinaw, which is the usual pronunciation of the name,) a military post in the State of Michigan, situated upon an island, about nine miles in circuit, in the strait which connects Lakes Michigan and Huron. It is much resorted to by Indians and fur-traders. ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... admirably did Landor write Italian, his wonderful knowledge of Latin undoubtedly giving him the key to the soft, wooing tongue. He, of course, spoke the language with equal correctness; but, as with most Englishmen who go to Italy after having arrived at mature years, his pronunciation was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... us pleasure to say that we think the author in the treatment of this very difficult and intricate subject, English pronunciation, gives proof of not only an unusual degree of orthoepical knowledge, but also, for the most part, of rare judgment and taste."—JOSEPH THOMAS, LL. ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... loud warlike character, vivacious, with ululations and modulations. The third and most common was a sad melody, not too quick nor too slow, with temporary accelerations to suit words of a more slippery character in their pronunciation, or when sung in a ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of this book has given the pronunciation of the above words according to the sounds and rules of Italian and it has been a difficult task to present them in a sufficiently orthoepical form for English readers to understand, for the reason that all the vowels ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... the true pronunciation of the Jupiter of the Latins. . . . Existence itself. This is the signification of ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... she might have prevented the pronunciation of them when she saw the effect they infallibly ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... that the two quatrains are bound together by the first two b rhymes, and the Alexandrine, which rhymes with the eighth line, draws out the harmony with a peculiar lingering effect. In scanning and reading it is necessary to observe the laws of accentuation and pronunciation prevailing in Spenser's day; e.g. in learned (I, i), undeserved (I, ii), and woundes (V, xvii) the final syllable is sounded, patience (X, xxix) is trisyllabic, devotion (X, xl) is four syllables, and entertainment (X, xxxvii) is accented on the second and fourth syllables. ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... and all sorts of horrible but needful abominations occur to the mind in answer. But the answer is not so bad after all. Change the spelling without altering the pronunciation, and you get quand on sent des gouties, and, lo! you have it at once—le Parapluie—the faithful friend whose presence we most desire when we wish least for the necessity of it; the burden of our fine days, the shelter of ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... without, I hope, sacrificing elegance. The simplicity of the Finnish language and metre would, in my opinion, render a prose version bald and unsatisfactory. My chief difficulty has been to fit the Finnish names into even a simple English metre, so as to retain the correct pronunciation, and I fear I have not always succeeded in overcoming it satisfactorily. I am greatly indebted to Prof. Kaarle Krohn and Madame Aino Malmberg of Helsingfors, for their kindness in looking over the whole of my typewritten translation, and for numerous suggestions and comments. Of course I ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... are at Senlis. Nothing nor nobody can save Paris now," wailed Cousin Sophia. Cousin Sophia had taken to reading the newspapers and had learned more about the geography of northern France, if not about the pronunciation of French names, in her seventy-first year than she had ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... during England's wars. There was a certain amount of opposition, but it was soon overcome by ALFRED'S wisely insisting on the newspapers being printed in both languages. Since then the variations in dialect and pronunciation which prevailed in different districts of England have largely disappeared, and from Land's End to John o' Groat's the bilingual system is now securely established, though my mother told me that as a child she once met an old man in Northumberland ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... he obeyed this command. That was why suspicion grew the more in the mind of Dicky. But he made the Gippy say: "Good-morning, kind sir," over and over again. Now, it was a peculiar thing that Ibrahim's pronunciation grew worse every time; which goes to show that a combination of Soudanese and fellah doesn't make a really clever villain. Twice, three times, Dicky gave him other words and phrases to say, and practice made Ibrahim ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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 passage ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... fundamentals at least—reading and writing—the percentage of ignorance is nearly one-third smaller than that of Pennsylvania. There is less of higher culture, it is true, and the most respected and respectable citizens are often heard lapsing into strange inaccuracies of language and pronunciation. One of the most common is the use of "dooz" where "does" is meant. "I be" and "you be" are common instead of "I am" and "you are." In some localities along the Mississippi River "slough" is pronounced as if it were "slew." These are, of course, only laxities, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... of Scotland. The chairman then told him he must proceed to a hotter country:—he inquired into what climate, and being told Merryland, he with great composure made a critical observation on the pronunciation of that word, implying, that he apprehended it ought to be pronounced Maryland, and added, it would save him five pounds for his passage, as he was very desirous of seeing that country: but, notwithstanding, he with ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... the Chicago patwor admits of none. A literal rendering of the letter into English is as follows: "From after your article in 'The New York Tribune,' copied from 'The Chicago News,' I to myself have figured that the inhabitants of Chicago having great want of a system of pronunciation French, I take the liberty to you to send by the mail-post the number two of a work which I come from to publish; if you desire the other numbers, I to myself will make the pleasure of to you them to send also. The packers ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... and the Kandyan prime minister. This minister, who was a noticeable man, with large grey eyes, was called Pilame Tilawe. We write his name after Mr Bennett: but it is quite useless to study the pronunciation of it, seeing that he was hanged in 1812 (the year of Moscow)—a fact for which we are thankful as often as we think of it. Pil. (surely Tilawe cannot be pronounced Garlic?) managed to get the king's head into Chancery, and then fibbed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... Ruskin. I wonder what he would think if he should hear Karl and me sometimes. We jabber it all the time, he and Mamma and I. Dad won't let us when he's around, so we talk English then, and that instructs Karl. He's good except for his pronunciation. You should hear him do the Harvard yell! He rolls the 'r's' so far he almost loses them. They are even worse than ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... terms "pronunciation," "enunciation," and "articulation" are synonymous, but real pronunciation includes three distinct processes, and may therefore be defined as, the utterance of a syllable or a group of syllables with regard to articulation, accentuation, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... these new colonists have not forgotten their origin; they inherit the manners of their fathers; wear the same thick hair and long coats. Their drawling pronunciation, peculiar idiom, and the slowness of their movements, make them easily distinguished from the lively Gascons. A curious mixture of dialect resulted from the re-union of so many provinces with the patois ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... laughed wildly in answer. "Just the sort of name to suit a Norwegian nymph or goddess. Thelma is quaint and appropriate, and as far as I can remember there's no rhyme to it in the English language. Thelma!" And he lingered on the pronunciation of the strange word with a curious sensation of pleasure. "There is something mysteriously suggestive about the sound of it; like a chord of music played softly in the distance. Now, can I get through ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... 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 us? As, when a man is weary ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... of the tongue of course is employed in the pronunciation of the consonants and must be so agile that the minute it has finished its work it at ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... which each word is traced to its primary root. Forming a Text-Book of Etymology, with Definitions and the Pronunciation of each ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... Eldon and Sir Arthur Pigott each made a stand in court for his favorite pronunciation of the word 'lien;' Lord Eldon calling the word lion and Sir Arthur maintaining that it was to be pronounced like lean, Jekyll, with an allusion to the parsimonious arrangements of the Chancellor's kitchen, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... little eye brows as though trying to force recollection of something all but forgotten which the new words suggested, and then, to her own astonishment as well as to that of her teacher she had used other French words than those in the lessons—used them properly and with a pronunciation that the English woman knew was more perfect than her own; but Meriem could neither read nor write what she spoke so well, and as My Dear considered a knowledge of correct English of the first importance, other than conversational ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... His pronunciation was lost in the rasping of his throat, and, though he shrieked into my ear to make sure that I understood him above the howling of the wind, I could only make out that it was an endless ballad telling the fortune of a young ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... Puzzling Pages, Purposely to Please the Palates of Pretty Prattling Playfellows, Proudly Presuming that with Proper Penetration it will Probably, and Perhaps Positively, Prove a Peculiarly Pleasant and Profitable Path to Proper, Plain and Precise Pronunciation. ...
— Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation • Anonymous
... years ago, where my informant, now many years deceased, was educated. As se was not there pronounced like cee, but like say, there was no danger of confounding the two names. In England, where a different pronunciation of the Latin word prevailed, such confusion would be apt to occur; and hence, probably, English teachers substituted and for et; from which, in course of time, the other corruptions mentioned by MR. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... phonetic spelling of the name as pronounced by American gunners. The French got the same effect in pronunciation by spelling the singular "soixante quinze," but a Yankee cannoneer trying to pronounce it from that orthography was forced to call it a "quince," and that was something which it ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... up of a fine forehead, denoting astuteness, not so much as shrewdness, how, when and whither to shift his pegs in the battle of life; of a pair of eyes which work the spell; of a Grecian nose; of a mouth remarkable for the elasticity of the lips, that make him a model in the pronunciation of the English language. His voice, that of a tenor, undulating and clear, never obstreperous, enables his tongue to work the intended charm, when his head puts that member into motion; but the semi-earnestness of his address, his cool sort of John Bull smile, betray that his heart does not go always ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... been badly beaten by their 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
... monk's account of 'the Kingdom and the Nobles.' The name Ichi, is strikingly suggestive of the natural Chinese pronunciation of the word Inca. The stress laid on the three grades of nobles, suggests the Peruvian Inca castes of lower grade, as well as the Mexican; while the stately going forth of the king, 'accompanied ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was absolutely futile. But it enabled Mr. DEVLIN to fire off one of his tragical-comical orations, and Sir H. GREENWOOD to disclaim the accusation that he had treated the Irish problem with levity. "There is nothing light and airy about me," he declared; and no one who has heard his pronunciation of the word ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... said I one day to a gentleman who had just spoken some word whose secret of pronunciation I had been trying to filch for weeks—some delicate little jewel of a word, faint as a perfume, expressive as only a tiny Parisian word can be—and he did so in the politest manner in the world, adding some little witticism ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... each other. Mons. S—— displays many comical qualities, and manages to insure us several hearty laughs every morning and evening,—those being the seasons when we meet. I am going to take lessons from him in the pronunciation of French. Of female society I see nothing. The only petticoat that comes within our premises appertains to Nancy, the pretty, dark-eyed maid-servant of the man who lives in the other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... make use of. Ga-dia (the penis), they called Cud-da; Go-rey (the ear), they called -Ben-ne; in the word mi (the eye), they pronounced the letter I as an E; and in many other instances their pronunciation varied, so that there is good reason to believe several different languages are spoken by the natives of this country, and this accounts for only one or two of those words given in Captain Cook's vocabulary having ever been heard amongst the ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... defiantly, moving away from him in the direction of the staircase. "I had a wonderful time—perfectly wonderful. The people were all so interesting." Her pronunciation was as deliberately correct as if she were reading from a dictionary. It was the air of superiority that she always assumed with Gershom, for in no other way, she had learned from experience, could she irritate ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... we owe so much of the material for the study of the Babylonian and Assyrian religion, Ashurbanabal, I have retained the older usage of writing it with a b, following in this respect Lehman, whose arguments[3] in favor of this pronunciation for the last element in the name I regard as ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... here: —'The original forms of Gael should be mentioned—Gaedil, Goidil: in modern Gaelic orthography Gaoidheal where the dh is not realised in pronunciation. There is nothing impossible in the connection of the root of this with that of Scot, IF the s of the latter be merely prosthetic. But the whole thing is in nubibus, and ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... carrying the implication of wilfulness and capriciousness. Despotic is commonly applied to a masterful or severe use of power, which is expressed more decidedly by tyrannical. Arbitrary may be used in a good sense; as, the pronunciation of proper names is arbitrary; but the bad sense is the prevailing one; as, an arbitrary proceeding. Irresponsible power is not necessarily bad, but eminently dangerous; an executor or trustee should not be irresponsible; ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... effective operation. Hence the union of the words was natural and easy, and ahma denoted breathing, to live or sustain life. H is a precarious letter in all languages that use it, as the pronunciation of it by many who speak the English language, will prove. It was long ago dropt, in this word, and after it the last a, so that we now ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... delight of that exquisite sound of refinement in the pronunciation. Miss Sharp never misplaces an inflection or slurs a word, she never uses slang, and yet there is nothing pedantic in her selection of language—it is just as if her habitual associates were all of the same class as herself, and that she never heard ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... false note on the lyre makes not brother go to war with brother, nor sets friends at variance, nor makes states hostile to one another, so as to do and suffer at one another's hands the most dreadful things:[205] nor can anyone say that there was ever a dissension in any city as to the pronunciation of Telchines: nor in a private house any difference between man and wife as to woof and warp. And yet no one without learning would undertake to ply the loom, or write a book, or play on the lyre, though he would ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... may serve to illustrate one of those changes of pronunciation which have taken place in so many English words. Speaking of his villa, or country-box, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... 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 thinkest thou that I rule ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... be likened to a traveler in a foreign country, and a strange land, suddenly hearing one speaking fluently his own language, his native tongue. It is impossible to deceive him. In this case, however, it is not the mere words, the inflection or pronunciation, but the ideas, sentiments, and ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... now written, improperly, Cadogan; though the ancient pronunciation continues. "Cadung", "Ann. Wav." erroneously, perhaps, ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... Roberto Ware, Henrico Van Brunt, optime de Academia meritis, eo quod facundiam postprandialem irritam fecerunt. I hope you understood my Latin [laughter], and I hope you will forgive me the antiquity of my pronunciation [laughter]; but it is simply because I cannot help it. Then on a blackboard behind me I could have written in large letters the names of our guests who should make some brief dumb show of acknowledgment. You, at least, with your united applause, could make yourselves heard. If brevity ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... her a quarter of a year. An occasional lesson from my aunt supplied the rest. Afterwards, when grown a big boy, I had a few lessons from Mr. Stalker of Edinburgh, and finally from the Rev. Mr. Cleeve. But I never acquired a just pronunciation, nor could I read ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Letters were laid aside, and a New Testament brought out. Phelim read very poorly, and was often obliged to spell over the long words, and did not always succeed in giving the correct pronunciation; but no fault was found by his eager listeners. He read how Christ healed the leper, and poor Peter Barry found in the story a word of encouragement for him. He read of the Saviour's gracious compassion for the hungering multitude; and his ignorant auditors praised the divine ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous
... of my intercourse with Mammy was after the evacuation of the city and the event of Appomattox. The first incident was, with the negroes' usual talent that way, so transmogrified in pronunciation that it could mean nothing to them. It stood to them for a tremendous change, one which could not be condensed into a word, even though it exceeded ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... unto us we caused our 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 ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... admitted that, whatever early education Patrick Henry may have received, he did, in certain companies and at certain periods of his life, rather too perfectly conceal it under an uncouth garb and manner, and under a pronunciation which, to say the least, was archaic and provincial. Jefferson told Daniel Webster that Patrick Henry's "pronunciation was vulgar and vicious," although, as Jefferson adds, this "was forgotten while he was speaking."[5] Governor John Page "used to ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... began his knack of oral imitations, and when a child, could speak quite as well as afterwards; after his uncle, the disgusting pronunciation of the letter o then too infected his language; he made it come to the ear like an a. Humorously glancing at this affectation, Onslow or Stanhope said "Murray's ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... here a complete key to the pronunciation of Chinese words. For those who wish to pronounce with approximate correctness the proper names in this volume, the following may be a ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... In pronunciation the Brazilian German differs still more from the Portuguese than the printed forms would indicate. The main additional differences in this ...
— The German Element in Brazil - Colonies and Dialect • Benjamin Franklin Schappelle
... that Buck English happened to forget himself, which he almost always did whenever he became in earnest: he also forgot his polite language and peculiar elegance of pronunciation. To a vain and weak mind there is nothing more cutting than the consciousness of looking mortified in the eyes of others, and under these circumstances to feel that the laugh is against you, adds one not important item to ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... reading, the sort of reading which the schoolmaster should above all else endeavor to make his pupils proficient in, implies the ability so to read a plain account, a story, an oration, a play, or what not, at sight, with absolute correctness as to pronunciation, with such clearness of articulation and appropriateness of sentence utterance as will make it perfectly audible and intelligible to one's auditors, and with such suitable and impressive intonations as will ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... assertion was followed by a very rapid recital of some verses from Homer. "That figure," said the gentleman, "whose clothes are so bedaubed with snuff, was a schoolmaster of some reputation: he came hither to be resolved of some doubts he entertained concerning the genuine pronunciation of the Greek vowels. In his highest fits, he makes frequent mention of ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... my own ears, I yielded to the people the right of settling the 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 judgment ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... was faultless, but some slight unusual spacing of the words, some ultra-clarity of pronunciation, rather than a recognizable accent, made evident that the language ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... to make the best progress in acquiring the words and sentences in the following pages, the student is recommended to learn a few at a time by repeating them aloud with the aid of the phonetic pronunciation in ...
— Esperanto Self-Taught with Phonetic Pronunciation • William W. Mann
... 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 ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... dress I wore for many years; and I certainly speak Mahratti vastly better than I speak English for, although I improved a good deal while I was here, I am conscious that, though my grammar may be correct, my pronunciation differs a good deal ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... he began—and here I must observe that my chief knowledge of the phraseology and turn of thought so peculiar to the Irish peasant was derived from this source. Whenever Pat came "to discourse me," I got rich lessons in the very brogue itself, from the fidelity with which his spelling followed the pronunciation of his words—"I wouldn't like," said he, "that you would ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... 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 ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... eventually. Every Pecos Indian had, besides his Spanish name, an Indian name; and there is, according to Mr. Ritch, still a Pecos Indian at Jemez whose aboriginal appellation is "Huaja-toya" (Spanish pronunciation). I heard of him this morning (Sept. 17) through an Indian of Jemez. What I know of their burials ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... 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 speaking than in writing, it may be asked, with equal ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... think alas underfed, M. Bonnefons: it was our belief that he "went back," beyond the first Empire, to the scenes of the Revolution—this perhaps partly by reason, in the first place, of his scorn of our pronunciation, when we met it, of the sovereign word liberte, the poverty of which, our deplorable "libbete," without r's, he mimicked and derided, sounding the right, the revolutionary form out splendidly, with thirty r's, the prolonged beat of ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... The child's ability to recognise or identify a colour after having seen it once. 3. An association between the child's colour seeing and word hearing and speaking memories, by which the proper name for the colours is brought up in his mind. 4. Equally ready facility in the pronunciation of the various names of the colours which he recognises; and there is the further embarrassment, that any such process which involves association of ideas, is as varied as the lives of children. The ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... the dimensions of a cable code-word. Thus the high-sounding Compagnie Industrielle pour les Transports et Commerce au Stanley Pool is mercifully shaved to "Citas." This information, let me say, is a life-saver for the alien with a limited knowledge of French and whose pronunciation is worse. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... respect of him. Her cries, prompted by love and grief, would have had no effect on the dead body unless they had been accompanied by the words of Thoth, which she uttered with boldness (Ichu), and understanding (ager), and without fault in pronunciation (an-uh). The Egyptian of old kept this fact in his mind, and determined to procure the resurrection of his friends and relatives by the same means as Isis employed, i.e., the formulae of Thoth; with this object in view each dead person, was provided with a series of texts, either written ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... expression—an expression which indicated that they knew something exquisite and sacred which other people could never know. Other people, in their presence, were apt to feel mysteriously ignoble and to become secretly uneasy about ancestors, gloves, and pronunciation. The Magsworth Bitts manner was withholding and reserved, though sometimes gracious, granting small smiles as great favours and giving off a chilling kind of preciousness. Naturally, when any citizen of the community ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... of Pronunciation with respect of Accent, Time, and Quantity. But as the Science of Letters, Sounds, and Pronunciation is instilled into the Minds of the English Youth very early in Life, and as this GRAMMAR is not intended for the Use ...
— A Short System of English Grammar - For the Use of the Boarding School in Worcester (1759) • Henry Bate
... Brown had taken his charge to 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 was, in ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... grotesque air to his pages, which are studded with words like "nemmnedd" (named), "forrwerrpenn" (to despise), "tunderrstanndenn" (to understand), and so forth. But, in the first place, it fixes for all time, in a most invaluable manner, the pronunciation of English at that time; and in the second, it shows that Orm had a sound understanding of that principle of English which has been set at nought by those who would spell "traveller" "traveler." He knew that the tendency, and the, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... and evanescent. One passes easily into another by slight deviations of pronunciation, resulting from trivial differences in National and Individual condition and culture; like the Flesh of the animal, which readily decays from the Bony Skeleton, while the last remains preserved for ages as a fossil. The Vowel-Sounds so readily ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... away from home, riding or travelling, they always wear their best clothes, contrary to the habit of other nations. The English language is broken Dutch, mixed with French and British terms and words, but with a lighter pronunciation. They do not speak from the chest, like the Germans, but prattle only with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... any of the learned. It seems indeed to have been invented for the sake of poetry and music; the vowels are so abounding in all words, especially in terminations of them, that, excepting some few monosyllables, the whole language ends in them. Then the pronunciation is so manly, and so sonorous, that their very speaking has more of music in it than Dutch poetry and song. It has withal derived, so much copiousness and eloquence from the Greek and Latin, in the ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden |
