"Twang" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in which it received the visitor. People of the highest rank called on him; ambassadors left cards; the leading musical societies vied with each other in their zeal to do him honour. Even the poetasters began to twang their lyres in his praise. Thus Burney, who had been for some time in correspondence with him, saluted him with an effusion, of which it will suffice ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... thy venom'd stang, That shoots my tortur'd gums alang; And thro' my lugs gies mony a twang, Wi' gnawing vengeance; Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang, Like ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... you may take this as an observation founded on fact, that the language which a Roman Catholic of the lower class does not understand, is the one in which it is disposed to pray. As for him he had lots of English prayers, though he was totally ignorant of that language. The twang from the nose, the loud and rapid tone in which he spoke, and the malaproprian happiness with which he travestied every prayer he uttered, would have compelled any man to smile. The priests laughed outright before the whole congregation, particularly one of them, whom I well knew; the other ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... cheers having been given with due emphasis, if not discretion, they all stood up round the table. "Now, my boys, keep time. Mr Prose, if you attempt to chime in with your confounded nasal twang, I'll give you ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... down behind Si Thompson's planing mill as I stopped at the little red covered bridge that marked the boundary of the village. Silas had been dead for twenty years, but it seemed to me that it was only yesterday that I heard his nasal twang above the roar of the machinery: "Sa-ay, you fellers want to git out o' that!" The little bridge had lost much of its color and most of its impressiveness, for I remembered when to my boyish fancy it seemed a greater triumph of engineering than the Victoria bridge at ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... to the village with quick and joyful steps. He saw the smoke curling through the roof, and the thatch where green plants had thickly sprouted. He heard the children shouting and calling, and from a window that he passed came the twang of the koto, and everything seemed to cry a welcome for his return. Yet suddenly he felt a pang at his heart as he wandered down the street. After all, everything was changed. Neither men nor houses were those ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... person (she honeyed a Cockney twang) speedily came back to report that Miss. French had left about half-an-hour ago, and ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... what warrant he undertakes to do that. He says I do not look serious. I have not perhaps been trained in the same vinegar and persimmon school, [laughter;] I have not been doctrinated into the same solemn nasal twang which may characterize the gentleman, and which may be considered to be the evidence of seriousness and earnestness. I generally speak as a man, and as a good-natured man, I think. I hope I entertain no malice toward any body. But the honorable Senator thinks that I want to become a Radical. Why, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... in Allsopp or Guinness. He hoarsely orders a 'pot' of some local brewer's manufacture—a man who knows exactly what he likes, and arranges to meet the hardy digestion of the mower and the reaper. He prefers a rather dark beer with a certain twang faintly suggestive of liquorice and tobacco, with a sense of 'body,' a thickness in it, and which is no sooner swallowed than a clammy palate demands a second gulp to wash away the relics of the first. Ugh! The second requires a third swig, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... turn to charge this new assailant an answering twang sounded from among the trees and a second arrow, sent with unerring precision, imbedded itself in the deer's body. As the stag fell, a lad of some sixteen years, clad in the dress of a forester, ran hastily forward and reached the animal at the same ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... declining years. We die, because we live. But none the less does Babbalanja quake. And if he flies not, 'tis because he stands the center of a circle; its every point a leveled dart; and every bow, bent back:—a twang, and Babbalanja dies." ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... with its sunshine, with its opulent colour, luminous and soft; I think of the cities, the white cities bathed in light; of the desolate wastes of sand, with their dwarf palms, the broom in flower. And in my ears I hear the twang of the guitar, the rhythmical clapping of hands and the castanets, as two girls dance in the sunlight on a holiday. I see the crowds going to the bull-fight, intensely living, many-coloured. And a thousand scents are wafted across my memory; I ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... voice, exquisitely modulated, yet resonant as the twang of a harp, now seemed of itself to draw and hold each listener; while a certain extravagance of gesticulation—a fantastic movement of both form and feature—seemed very near akin to fascination. And so ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... in your charge, Walter, and do with him as you will. Guard well lest he betray us once again. Take him from my sight, for his breath poisons the room. And now, Nigel, if that worthy graybeard of thine would fain twang his harp or sing to us—but what in God's name ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wounded his enemy more deeply than any physical stroke could possibly have done; and, as has been the case with thousands before and since, he had found out that the trite old aphorism, "Revenge is sweet," is a contemptible fallacy. For even if there is a sweet taste in the mouth, it is followed by a twang of such intense bitterness that no sensible being ever feels disposed to ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... spools, pins, and the like. But when robbed of all these he could generally secrete a piece of elastic, which, when put between his teeth and stretched to its utmost capacity, would yield a delightful twang when played upon with the forefinger. He could also fashion an interesting musical instrument in his desk by means of spools and catgut and bits of broken glass. The chief joy of his life was an old tuning-fork that the teacher of the singing school had given him, but, ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... my dear Wilfrid. I am not quite so bad as I paint myself; say to yourself she has arthritis, she is sixty-five, and her new companion reads aloud with a twang; then you will ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... figure with that ragged, tattered coat appearing under his livery; can't he go spruce and clean, like the rest of the servants? The fellow has a roguish leer with him which I don't like by any means; besides, he has such a twang in his discourse, and an ungraceful way of speaking through the nose, that one can hardly understand him; I wish the fellow be not tainted with some bad disease." The witnesses further made oath, that the said Timothy lay out a-nights, and went abroad often at unseasonable hours; ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... again; upon which we all fell a-laughing for half an hour. One of the Honest Fellows got behind me in the interim, and hit me a sound slap on the back; upon which he got the laugh out of my hands, and it was such a twang on my shoulders, that I confess he was much merrier than I. I was half angry; but resolved to keep up the good humour of the company; and after holloing as loud as I could possibly, I drank off a bumper of claret, that made me stare again. "Nay," says ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... friend of Mr. Saulsbury's," he drawled with a mournful twang. "We've got plenty o' bread and milk for strangers. Somebody's spread the idea we run a hotel here and we're pestered a good deal with folks that want to stop for a meal. We take care o' 'em mostly. The wife and little gal sort o' like havin' folks ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... turquoise and with malachite, With bronze and purple pied, I march before him like the night In all its starry pride; LULLI may twang and MOLIERE write His pastime to provide, But seldom laughs the KING So much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... then I sang and shouted, Keeping measure, as I sped, To the harp-twang of the snow-shoe As it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... of that Church of which his sovereign, many of his family, and the greater part of the civilized world, were members." And his lordship added a postscript, of which Esmond knew the inspiring genius very well, for it had the genuine twang of the seminary, and was quite unlike poor Frank's ordinary style of writing and thinking; in which he reminded Colonel Esmond that he too was, by birth, of that Church; and that his mother and sister should have his lordship's ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... smell, in its ordinary state, much connexion with our present subject. Mr. Aubrey tells us, indeed, of an apparition which disappeared with a curious perfume as well as a most melodious twang; and popular belief ascribes to the presence of infernal spirits a strong relish of the sulphureous element of which they are inhabitants. Such accompaniments, therefore, are usually united with other materials for imposture. If, as a general ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... tired of orientalism. He described the quaint, the picturesque, the amusing side of life in the East. He was full of enthusiasm for the land of soft voices and smiling faces, where countless little shops spread their wares under the light of the evening lanterns, where the twang of the samisen and the geisha's song are heard coming from the lighted tea-house, and the shadow of her helmet-like coiffure is seen appearing and disappearing in silhouette against the ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... usefulness was wrecked by fanaticism. In his journey he was attended by one whom he called his armor-bearer, and their entrance into each village was signaled by a loud hymn sung by the excited pair. The very tone in which Davenport preached has been perpetuated by his admirers; it was a nasal twang, which had great effect. A law was passed against those irregularities, and Davenport was thrown into Hartford jail, where he sang hymns all night, to the great admiration of his friends. On being released he went to Lyme, where, after sermon, a bonfire of idols was made, to which the ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... out. But Arjuna, endued with energy, continued eating in the dark, his hand, from habit, going to his mouth. His attention being thus called to the force of habit, the strong- armed son of Pandu set his heart upon practising with his bow in the night. And, O Bharata, Drona, hearing the twang of his bowstring in the night, came to him, and clasping him, said, 'Truly do I tell thee that I shall do that unto thee by which there shall not be an archer equal to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... had, and how awkwardly they handled the silver and the china, Jack assuming the Irish brogue he knew so well, and Grey the Yankee dialect, with the nasal twang, which nearly drove Bessie into hysterics, and made Archie laugh as he had not laughed ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... the cottage, and LeFroy at his post in the storehouse nodded sagely to himself as the notes of the girl's rich contralto floated loud and clear above the twang of the ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... Southern boy, Charlie Maxfield by name, though known simply as "Chatz." He possessed all the traits to be found in boys who have been born and raised south of Mason and Dixon's line, was inclined to be touchy whenever he thought anyone doubted his honor, talked with a quaint little twang that was really delightfully musical, and taken in all had grown to be a prime favorite ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... go-between in a purchase, and seems torn to pieces in the whirlwind of voices which assail him from the disputing parties, in each of whose languages he tries to explain; but, poor patient Jew! you never could speak any of them intelligibly, and your nasal twang, and drawling accent, so disguises what you do say, that nothing but a miracle could make you understood. The screams, the grimaces, the gestures which these people exhibit, during their unavailing efforts ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... have put you in your place, dear reader. Sit you like Watts' Hope on your own little blue globe, and I'll sit on mine, and we won't bump into one another if we can help it. You can twang your old hopeful lyre. It may be music to you, so I don't blame you. It is a terrible wowing in my ears. But that may be something in my individual atmosphere; some strange deflection as your music crosses the space between us. Certainly I never ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... this pious burst, he proceeds to a castigation of the English for their observations on the nasal twang of his countrymen, and also for their criticism upon the sense in which sundry adjectives are used; and, to show the superior purity of the American language, he informs the reader that in England "the most elegant and refined talk constantly of "fried 'am" ... they seem ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... deserted by his troops. His wife saved the situation. She upbraided her husband as he was scaling the palisades to escape by night, fortified him with wine, girded his sword on herself, and caused her female attendants—of whom there were "several tens"—to twang bowstrings. Katana, taking heart of grace, advanced single handed; the Yemishi, thinking that his troops had rallied, gave way, and the Japanese soldiers, returning to their duty, killed or captured all ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... expressive and mobile from his somewhat scornful mouth to his deep-set, observant eyes, and clearly denoted the absence of the stolid Saxon strain in his blood. His accent too, though not that of an educated man, was quite free from the hateful Cockney twang. His dress was spare as his figure, but though well worn there was something spruce and trim about his whole demeanour which indicated that he was not totally indifferent to the impression he created on others. He looked ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... not talk so much too fast, as too loud. Tens of thousands twang and slur and shout and burr! Many of us drawl and many others of us race tongues and breath at full speed, but, as already said, the speed of our speech does not matter so much. Pitch of voice matters very much and so does pronunciation—enunciation is ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... the upright parts, and its notch caught in the bow-string. Everything is then in readiness. The tiger soon steals along his beaten track. He comes nearer and nearer the trap until at last his breast presses the string. Twang, goes the bow and the arrow is imbedded in the flesh of its victim. He writhes for a few moments, until he is released from his torments by the certain death which follows the course of ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... of North or South America, instead of an Indian of the "East Indies," he would have pierced those fishes with an arrow at every twang of his bow. ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... was looking at the instruments, Mrs. Airy came into the equatorial house, bringing Mr. Adams, the rival of Leverrier, [Footnote: See Chapter VII.]—another short man, but bright-looking, with dark hair and eyes, and again the thick voice, this time with a nasal twang. He is a fellow of Pembroke College, and master of arts. If Mr. Adams had become a fellow of his own college, St. John, he must have gone into holy orders, as it is called; this he was not willing to do; he accepted a fellowship ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... Bressano) were very smart, and all the people in the chapel were dressed as for a ball. There was a priest at the table to tell the girls what to do. High Mass was performed, then a long sermon was delivered by a priest who spoke very fluently, but with a strange twang and in a very odd style, continually apostrophising the two girls by name, comparing them to olives and other fruit, to candelabri, and desiring them to keep themselves pure that 'they might go as virgins into the chamber of their beloved.' When the Sacrament was administered ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... are like the twang of a bow-string. Hardy was like that—short, lithe, sunburned, vivid. Into the lives of Jarrick, Hill, and myself, old classmates of his, he came and went in the fashion of one of those queer winds that on a sultry day in summer blow ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... must drop the deer in its tracks or forfeit both deer and shaft. Far back came the right hand and the bow, that you or I might not move, bent easily beneath the muscles of the forest god. There was a singing twang and Bara, leaping high in air, collapsed upon the ground, an arrow through his heart. Tarzan dropped to earth and ran to his kill, lest the animal might even yet rise and escape; but Bara was safely dead. As Tarzan stooped to lift it to his shoulder there fell upon his ears a thunderous bellow ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... piano. "Do excuse me, sir, I beg of you," she replies, "I have not touched an instrument of music half a dozen times since I was married—one, you know, has so much to do." Thus music as a science lags in the rear, while musical instruments in myriads twang away in the van: and thus the window cobweb having caught its flies for the season is swept ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... it has not exactly the genuine twang, but I hope no one will observe that but himself. I have more incidents in it than usual in works of the class—an elopement, a divorce, a duel, a murder, and ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... scout mee for him at the corner of the Orchard like a bum-Baylie: so soone as euer thou seest him, draw, and as thou draw'st, sweare horrible: for it comes to passe oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharpely twang'd off, giues manhoode more approbation, then euer proofe it selfe would ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... nothing against him in her judgment that he was a greasy, fawning, pawing, creeping, black-browed rascal, who could not look her full in the face, and whose every word sounded like a lie. There was a twang in his voice which ought to have told her that he was utterly untrustworthy. There was an oily pretence at earnestness in his manner which ought to have told that he was not fit to associate with gentlemen. There was a foulness of demeanour about ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... general overflow of spirits, and they went up the river like a party of children on a merry-making. Sylvia decorated herself with garlands till she looked like a mermaid; Mark, as skipper, issued his orders with the true Marblehead twang; Moor kept up a fire of pun-provoking raillery; Warwick sung like a jovial giant; while the Kelpie danced over the water as if inspired with the universal gayety, and the very ripples seemed to laugh as they ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... rather sedentary lives. At that time in the evening the Chaussee des Etats-Unis was naturally gay with the landsman's welcome to the sailor on shore. The cafes were crowded both inside and out. Singing came from one and the twang of an instrument from another, all along the quay. Soldiers mingled fraternally with sailors, and pretty young women, mostly bareheaded and neatly dressed in black, mingled with both. It was what a fastidious ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... softened with the modification of banter, but rasped with the twang of suspicion as though the speaker expected to give offense—and did not care. Young Edwardes received it with a peal of laughter so infectious that the man in the ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... the can of milk, saying, with a twang: "Show me the way that I may walk therein," and, accompanied by the laughing girl, made rapid way to the pig-pen just as the old man set up a ferocious shout to call the hired hand ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the gathered heap of straw. "Ah," he said—"got in again, I see! The shutters must be looked to." "I daresay," I remarked, looking disconsolately around me, "you don't find it very easy to get tenants for houses of this kind." "Very easy!" said Mr. M'Craw, with somewhat of a Highland twang, and, as I thought, with also a good deal of Highland hauteur—as was of course quite natural in so shrewd and extensive a house-agent, when dealing with the owner of a domicile that would not let, and who made foolish remarks—"No, nor easy ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... then, in the middle of a favorite two-step, a mandolin string snapped with a sharp twang, and Bud came as close to swearing as a well-behaved young man may come in the ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... the handcuffs smiled; The constable looked, and he smiled, too, As the fiddle began to twang; And the man in the handcuffs suddenly sang Uproariously: "This life so free Is the thing for me!" And the constable smiled, and said no word, As if unconscious of what he heard; And so they went on till the train came in - The convict, and boy with ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... though fainter, sounds than these contributed to my restlessness. My head was close to the crimson curtain,—the sexual division of the boat, —behind which I continually heard whispers and stealthy footsteps; the noise of a comb laid on the table or a slipper dropped on the floor; the twang, like a broken harp-string, caused by loosening a tight belt; the rustling of a gown in its descent; and the unlacing of a pair of stays. My ear seemed to have the properties of an eye; a visible ...
— Sketches From Memory (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Dana shall twang a guitar And murmur a passionate strain; Oh, fairer by far Than those ravishments are The castles ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... The stripling soldier burns to see The spot of thy nativity; His ardent fancy can restore Thy castle's turrets, now no more; See the tall plumes of victory wave, And call old valour from the grave; Twang the strong bow, and point the lance, That pierc'd the shatter'd hosts of France, When Europe, in the days of yore, Shook ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... into sight to seize the side of his swift little vessel and lean over towards the approaching cutter, as, snatching off his wide white Panama hat, he passed one duck-covered white arm across his yellowish-looking hairless face and shouted fiercely and in a peculiar twang— ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... made him was to ask, "When you first came amongst us, major, you spoke with the barbaric provincialism and nasal twang of your countrymen, but in your years with us you have lost them. Could ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... you go further and pause to admire A ship that's as neat as your heart could desire, As smart as a frigate aloft and alow, Her brasswork like gold and her planking like snow, Look round for a mate by whose twang it is plain That his home port is somewhere round Boston or Maine, With a jaw that's the cut of a square block of wood, And beat it, my son, while the going is good! There'll be scraping and scouring from morning till night To keep that brass shiny and keep them decks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... it was dark enough for the blinds and shutters to be all thrown open in their rooms, they heard a carriage coming down the avenue. It, too, stopped under the window, and in a moment they recognised the twang of Malcolm's banjo and Miss Allison's guitar. "It's a serenade," called Eugenia. "What a good ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Committees, and whose dinners are so good—bellowing out with Tancred and Godfrey, "On to the breach, ye soldiers of the cross, Scale the red wall and swim the choking foss. Ye dauntless archers, twang your cross-bows well; On, bill and battle-axe and mangonel! Ply battering-ram and hurtling catapult, Jerusalem is ours—id Deus vult." After which comes a mellifluous description of the gardens of Sharon and the maids of Salem, and a prophecy that roses shall deck the entire country of Syria, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... language however which is spoken is the most classical and pure Italian and except the above mentioned aspiration it is delightful to the ear; peculiarly so to those who come from the north of Italy, and have only hitherto heard the unpleasing nasal twang of the Milanese and the exceeding uncouth barbarous dialect of Bologna. Another striking peculiarity is the smart appearance of the Tuscan peasantry. They are a remarkably handsome race of men; the females ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... selling my knife," and reaching out and taking it in my hand, after making a few preliminary remarks, I began with the twang of the almost extinct down east Yankee, and in a high-pitched voice and at ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... him again at once by his appearance; and, as he came nearer, I saw from his manner that he was intending to stop and speak to me, for he slightly raised his hat and in a soft, melodious voice with a colonial "twang" which was far from being disagreeable, and which, indeed, to my ear gave a certain additional interest to his remarks, he saluted me ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... or even fired at with a pistol. As for prosecuting the miscreant, had not his own lawyer told him over and over again that such a prosecution was the very thing which the miscreant desired. And then the additional publicity of such a prosecution, and the twang of false romance which would follow and the horrid alliteration of the story of the two beasts, and all the ridicule of the incidents, crowded upon his mind, and he walked forth from the Shadrach office among the throngs of the city a ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... absinth and some West Indian bitters," Granet replied. "A chap who often goes to the States brought it back for me. Gives a cocktail the real Yankee twang, he says." ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... left hand in his breeches pocket, clenched his right, and raised his arm, he begins his learned dissertation on well digested principles, ardent desire of truth, incessant struggles to shake off prejudices, and forth are chanted, in nasal twang and tragic recitative, his emanations of soul, bursts of though, and flashes ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... such intense and overweening personality), it must yet be admitted that he habitually speaks out of that primitive silence and solitude in which only the heroic soul dwells. Certainly not in contemporary British literature is there another writer whose bowstring has such a twang. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... importance of the subject reveals itself. The art that can convert a screech into pleasing cadences of soft sound is no trifle. Nasal resonance must not be confounded with nasal twang. The one is produced by vibrating the air in the cavities, the twang by expelling it from them. The part played by each organ in voice production may be briefly summarised:—The lungs send out a stream of air; the vocal chords, principally, modulate it; ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... round to the front of the sofa. He had, at any rate, learnt that his strange guests were brother and sister. The man, he presumed, must be Signor Vicinironi—or count, or prince, as it might be. It was wonderful what good English he spoke. There was just a twang of foreign ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... "granny," he burst into a loud laugh, and then placing his hat a little more on one side, and assuming a nasal twang, he said, "Neow dew tell, if you're from Massachusetts. How dew you dew, little Yankee, and how are all the ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... and the mellow Roman; the sibilation of England, the brogue of Ireland, the shibboleth of the Minories, the twang of certain American States, the guttural expectoration of Germany, the nasal emphasis of France, and even the modulated Hindoostanee, and the ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... voiceless voices of the night were shouting riotously. The wind came suffing through the swaying arms of the bearded waving hemlocks—Druid priests officiating at some age-old sacrament. Then a night-hawk swerved past with a hum of wings like the twang ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... the dormer window in the high roof watching the Spanish soldiers in the batteries working their guns, when, happening to look round, they saw a crossbow protruded from a window of the warehouse to their right, and a moment afterwards the sharp twang of the bow was heard. There was nothing unusual in this; for although firearms were now generally in use the longbow and the crossbow had not been entirely abandoned, and there were still archers in the English army, and ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... his race. His face and his body, which was clothed in black, were invisible in the darkness; but his big white eyes shone out, and there came from them a light like a ray of dawn through the chinks of a door. He spoke in a husky, monotonous tone, with a slight nasal twang that gave it the soft melody of music heard at night in the streets. Sometimes the breathing of an ass, or the soft lowing of an ox, accompanied, like a chorus of invisible spirits, the voice of the slave ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... calm and peaceful—yet it was busy with sound and with movement. Rooks, those sanctimonious humbugs, circled overhead, cawing thieves' warnings, that had the twang of sermons, to other rooks, out of sight in neighbouring seed-fields. Lapwings, humbugs too, but humbugs in a prettier cause, started from the shrubberies where their eggs were hidden, and fluttered lamely towards the ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... promised them after much negotiation for the week after next. The morning promenade is a wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent, could be found in no other place in the civilized world. A moralist would assuredly find here abundant food for reflection on the wonderful powers of self-deception possessed by mankind. We all get up at most inconvenient ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... with a tattooed serpent winding its way round the strong wrist to the elbow (oh, wonderful make-up box!)—on the edge of the marble bar, and called loudly for a drink. His very voice was raw and husky with a tang of the sea in it. Dollops's nasal twang took up the story, while the barmaid—a red-headed, fat woman with a coarse, hard face, who was continually smiling—looked them up and down, and having taken stock of them set two pewter tankards of frothing ale before them, took the money from Cleek, bit it, and then with ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... that the twang of this fine phrase gave Jack uncommon pleasure. He repeated it again and again under his breath, flourishing his pipe, so as, allegorically and metaphorically, to set forth the extent of ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... the first floor, where the plebian stomach is stayed with tea and lentils, even to the very house-top, where are administered comforting syrups and a menu that is sweetened throughout its length with the twang of lutes, the clash of cymbals, and the ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... among those who have the Latin Tongue, such as use to make what they call golden Verses. Commend me also to those who have not Brains enough for any of these Exercises, and yet do not give up their Pretensions to Mirth. These can slap you on the Back unawares, laugh loud, ask you how you do with a Twang on your Shoulders, say you are dull to-day, and laugh a Voluntary to put you in Humour; the laborious Way among the minor Poets, of making things come into such and such a Shape, as that of an Egg, an Hand, an Ax, or any thing that no body had ever thought ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... dinner the sun had set, and night had dropped down softly over the Bay. Capri had disappeared. The long serpent of lights had uncoiled itself along the sea. Down below, very far down, there was the twang and the thin, acute whine of guitars and mandolines, the throbbing cry of Southern voices. The stars were out in a deep sky of bloomy purple. There was no chill in the air, but a voluptuous, brooding warmth, that shed over the city and the waters a luxurious benediction, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... the latter, he is called Spade—Captain Spade—and this name has an Italian twang about it. Thus there is a Greek, an Italian, and a crew recruited from every corner of the earth to man a schooner with a Norwegian name! This mixture strikes me ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... very much like Aristotle;—you know I am fond of variety. Terentius I could not have told from Menander. Naso, to my astonishment, was Nicander in disguise. Virgilius had a strong twang of Theocritus. Martial put me much in mind of Archilochus—and Titus Livius was positively Polybius and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... very well. The Senator spoke with a clear, sonorous voice, no doubt with a twang, but so audibly as to satisfy the room in general. "I shall not," he said, "dwell much on your form of government. Were I to praise a republic I might seem to belittle your throne and the lady who sits on it,—an offence which would not ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... laid it loosely in large loops upon the ground so that it might run easily without hitching, then he tied the end of the thread tightly around one of his arrows. He fitted the arrow to the bow and drew the feather to his ear. Twang! rang the bowstring, and the feathered messenger flew whistling upon its errand to the watch-tower. The very first shaft did ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... shadow and his mate the panther call. From the prairies and the regions where the pine-plumed forest grows Shall arise the tawny legions with their lances and their bows; And again the cries of battle shall resound along the plain, Bows shall twang and quivers rattle, women wail their warriors slain; And by lodge-fire lowly burning shall the mother from afar List her warrior's steps returning from ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... sublime. He was of the friendly, neighborly, noisy, demonstrative spirit characteristic of his age and class. He could have entered into this circle of strangers—strangers for the most part, in all probability, to one another—and in ten minutes' time been one of them. Their screams, their twang, their slang, their gossip, their jolly banter, and their gay ineptitude would have been to him like a welcome home. But he was Norrie Ford, known by name and misfortune to every one of them. The boys and girls on the pier, the elderly women in the rocking-chairs, even the waitresses ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... they had already been transferred with all the other treasures of a young and loving heart, to the keeping of a dark-eyed youth of Manilla. He had been rudely repulsed by her parents, but often would the cautious twang of his guitar bring her to a midnight interview. These clandestine meetings were interrupted. Her dark-eyed lover no longer came, and she was told she would never see him more. A marriage with the Don was urged, she resisted—the alternative was a convent! In pity she implored a ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... dozen shepherds, crofters, weavers, and shoemakers, not the shadow of a gentleman among them!—a man who ate brose, went with bare knees, worked like any hind, and did not dare offend his wretched relations by calling his paltry farm his own!—for the sake of such a fellow, with a highland twang that disgusted his fastidious ear, his own daughter made a mock of his authority, treated him as a nobody! In his own house she had risen against him, and betrayed him to the insults of his enemy! His conscious importance, partly ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... cussed heavenly twang," observed one, disapprovingly, as one letter largely composed ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... was unlike any other thing that had ever been made in any country. The young professor had been toiling over it for three years and it had constantly baffled him, until, on this hot afternoon in June, 1875, he heard an almost inaudible sound—a faint TWANG—come from the ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... the decisive hour, That lifts me to the summit of renown, Or leaves me on the earth a breathless corse, The buzz and bustle of the field before me; The twang of bow-strings, and the clash of spears: With every circumstance of preparation; Strike with an awful horror!—Shouts are echo'd, To drown dismay, and blow up resolution Even to its utmost swell.—From hearts so firm, Whom dangers fortify, and toils inspire, What has a leader not to hope! And, yet, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... her raised voice had a sudden twang in it—suggestive of the streets; of the People. "No—you needn't trouble to make soft eyes at me. I know you now—I know that what that man said was true. He called you a coward and a cad. You are worse! You are a ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... prone to enjoy the present, forgetful of the past and regardless of the future—happily, I say, for those humpy and hairy creatures are not unacquainted with man's devices—the sudden surprise, the twang of the red-man's bow and the crack of ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... Twang went Ni-ha-be's bow at that instant, and the man next to Bill was raising his rifle to fire, when his arms were suddenly seized by a grasp of iron and jerked ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... addition, to disguise the fact that the delinquent I speak of (I had almost written renegade) is an Irishman. No wonder that he should attempt the disguise, for he must deeply feel his delinquency. In all cases such as this, the Cockney twang and occasional curtailment is assumed to overcome the brogue, but in vain. For the first half dozen words of each paragraph in a conversation it gets on well enough, but the conclusion ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... boom of the fairy bassoon, And the oboes and horns as they strike up a tune, And the twang of the harps and the sigh of the lutes, And the clash of the cymbals, the purl of the flutes; And the fiddles sail in To the musical din, While the chief all on fire, with a flame for a hand, Rattles on the gay measure and stirs ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... the swabber, the boatswain and I, The gunner and his mate, Loved Mall, Meg, and Marian and Margary, But none of us cared for Kate. For she had a tongue with a twang, Would cry to a sailor, go hang! She loved not the savor of tar or of pitch,— Then to sea, boys, and let her ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... scarce was each to his slumber laid, When the country folks came to serenade; With twang of fiddle, and toot of horn, And shriek of fife, they stayed till morn! Poor Campers! never a wink got they! So they started for home at break ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... remember to have drunk—I sought my room, Tom insisting upon sleeping on the floor in the same chamber, and my last waking recollections were of the pungent fumes of tobacco, and the tinkle, tinkle, twang of ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... helping him to sustain his balance, which was not as stable as could be wished, I plied him with mildly genial conversation and at last elicited a few vague answers. These were couched in the cockney idiom, but I caught a faint nasal twang which led me to suspect that the speaker had come from the other side of the Atlantic. Yes—he told me he had just arrived ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... the lower classes, were dancing. The dancing is kept up, at intervals, throughout the day, but the crowd, the spirit, and the lite come in at night. The next night, which was the last, we went ashore in the same manner, until we got almost tired of the monotonous twang of the instruments, the drawling sounds which the women kept up, as an accompaniment, and the slapping of the hands in time with the music, in place of castanets. We found ourselves as great objects of attention as any persons or anything at the place. Our sailor dresses— ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... "And the twang of the bowstring and the thrashing about of the kill in the thicket would have told Tse-tse exactly where they were," said the Navajo. "The Dine when they hunt man do not turn aside for ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... can no more "get along" without his spice of cant, than without his chew of tobacco and his nasal twang. What follows, however, took even ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... notable about these women, from the youngest to the oldest, and with hardly an exception. In spite of their piety, they could twang off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person. There was nothing so high or so low, in heaven or earth or in the human body, but a woman of this neighbourhood would whip out the name of it, fair and square, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... answer, but I do not know what train of thought my casual remark had suggested in him, for presently he began to speak. He spoke in a low voice, without any expression, but his accents were educated, and it was a relief to hear him after the twang and the vulgar intonations which for some time ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... They've pretty good claret, here, eh, Silverbridge?" He could never hit off his familiarity quite right. He had my-Lorded his young friend at first, and now brought out the name with a hesitating twang, which the young nobleman appreciated. But then the young nobleman was quite aware that the Major was a friend for club purposes, and sporting purposes, and ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... writer, who is always present, as Walton is in his Angler, as White is in his Selbourne. Cowper, however, even at his worst, is a highly cultivated methodist; if he is sometimes enthusiastic, and possibly superstitious, he is never coarse or unctuous. He speaks with contempt of "the twang of the conventicle." Even his enthusiasm had by this time been somewhat tempered. Just after his conversion he used to preach to everybody. He had found out, as he tells us himself, that this was a mistake, that ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... Court to see that the affair was genuine. He was now in his right senses; a man of rock, not to be moved even by a mention of Burns's 'Hielan' Mary,' his tartan tie had slipped nearly out of sight beneath the collar of his coat, and the hard, metallic twang of his voice would have exalted ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... Mississippi met; shaggy lowered heads and flying tails and a thousand hoofs swept past him; and after them fleet naked men, who made themselves one with the horses they rode. The buffalo herds were flying before their hunters. He heard bowstrings twang, and saw great creatures stagger and fall headlong, and lie panting ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... at the head of the stairway looked straight ahead where a man with a strong bow held himself close in the shadow of a great rock. When the twang of the bow string sounded, she loosened not her hand from that of Ka-yemo as he fell, but with her other hand she pulled aside the robe from her breast—also the necklace of the white metal, that not anything turn aside the point of the arrow ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... He is almost as great a pasha among the ladies as Bulbul. They crowd in flocks to see him at Saint Waltheof's, where the immense height of his forehead, the rigid asceticism of his surplice, the twang with which he intones the service, and the namby-pamby mysticism of his sermons, have turned all the dear girls' heads for some time past. While we were having a rubber at Mrs. Chauntry's, whose daughters are following the new mode, I heard the following talk (which ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mystery was, to me, as clear as daylight. I only marvelled how his Honour could waste his time and mine by putting what he thought were searching questions to the accused relating to his past. Francis Smethurst, who had quite shaken off his somnolence, spoke with a curious nasal twang, and with an almost imperceptible soupcon of foreign accent, He calmly denied Kershaw's version of his past; declared that he had never been called Barker, and had certainly never been mixed up in any murder case ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy |
