Keohane Pronunciation Quotes

The pronunciation of both Sami and Portuguese languages is strikingly similar: the Portuguese evolved from folksy Latin while the Sami evolved from reindeers' howling. ~ Arto Paasilinna

Yiddish has a down-to-earth quality that makes it remote from high-flown rhetoric, and it has a catch-as-catch-can charm derived from its stunning variety-of syntax, spelling, pronunciation, and vocabulary-from region to region. ~ Israel Shenker

Most of the people who have verbally asserted that 'there is no master of pronounciation' have intentionally made a claim and unintentionally made their claim believable. (It is 'pro-nun-ciation' not 'pro-noun-ciation'.) ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Poetry's the speech of kings. You're one of those
Shakespeare gives the comic bits to: prose!
All poetry (even Cockney Keats?) you see
's been dubbed by [Us] into RP,
Received Pronunciation, please believe [Us]
your speech is in the hands of the Receivers. ~ Tony Harrison

Language, never forget, is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines. ~ Bill Bryson

Just as a poet often has license from the rules of grammar and pronunciation, we should like to ask for 'physicists' license from the rules of mathematics in order to express what we wish to say in as simple a manner as possible. ~ Richard P. Feynman

And in his third essay Herodius (not Herodotus, a mistaken pronunciation, perhaps) said 'We can contend with the evil that men do in the name of evil, but heaven protect us from what they do in the name of good.' ~ Richard Boone

The difficulty of learning the dead languages does not arise from any superior abstruseness in the languages themselves, but in their being dead, and the pronunciation entirely lost. It would be the same thing with any other language when it becomes dead. The best Greek linguist that now exists does not understand Greek so well as a Grecian plowman did, or a Grecian milkmaid; and the same for the Latin, compared with a plowman or a milkmaid of the Romans; and with respect to pronunciation and idiom, not so well as the cows that she milked. It would therefore be advantageous to the state of learning to abolish the study of the dead languages, and to make learning consist, as it originally did, in scientific knowledge. ~ Thomas Paine

Hyperbolic Suggestion is - as one might infer from the term's literal interpretation - a method of suggestion induced upon the subject (or subjects), in question, through the blatant and immoderate invocation of hyperbole. Simply stated, excessive exaggeration induces a trance upon the recipient, rendering him or her remarkably susceptible to suggestion. Thus, through the use of a multitude of descriptive adjectives and superlatives, neural mechanisms and pathways are overloaded, as canals and bypasses are burrowed into the thick of the gray matter. The dendrites are, through this process, tuned to a predetermined frequency by which the seeds of suggestion can be sown. When this occurs, the subject becomes incredibly compliant to any orders given at a certain tone of voice. In some cases, orders need not be given. The subject's attitudes might well be so affected by the hyperbole as to affect his natural tendencies...Emmanuel silently wondered if there existed a perfect combination of words or phrases that could somehow - as in the case of Hyperbolic Suggestion - subvert even the most stubborn of wills. Then again, maybe it wasn't so much the words as it was how they were spoken: if he achieved exactly the most desirable intonation, rhythm, timing, pitch and pronunciation in his speaking, would his verbal appeals somehow make greater inroads in garnering their consent? There had to be some optimal combination of aspirated consonants, diphthongs, facial expressions and inflect ~ Ashim Shanker

Schwa: The faint vowel sound in many unstressed syllables in the English language. It is signified by the pronunciation "uh" and represented by the symbol upside down e. For example, the e in overlook, the a in forgettable, and the o in run-of-the-mill.
It is the most common vowel sound in the English language. ~ Neal Shusterman

Remember that lettuce doesn't grow on a spruce; and it also doesn't rhyme with it. ~ Jakub Marian

Many lyricists rhyme as they pronounce, and their pronunciation is simply horrible. They can make "home" rhyme with "alone," and "saw" with "more," and go right off and look their innocent children in the eye without a touch of shame. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Of village: it is not called so because its inhabitants are of higher age on average; in fact, there is no connection between the words "village" and "age" whatsoever. ~ Jakub Marian

Punctuation is the art of dividing a written composition into sentences, or parts of sentences, by points or stops, for the purpose of marking the different pauses which the sense, and an accurate pronunciation require. ~ Lindley Murray

He said "cool" like I say a Spanish word when I'm not sure of the pronunciation. ~ Kelley Armstrong

If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud! ~ William Strunk Jr.

You know," he said, "this design begins to appeal to me after all. Sea slugs aren't the least bit arousing, but logarithms . . . I've always thought that word sounded splendidly naughty." He let it roll off his tongue with ribald inflection. "Logarithm." He gave an exaggerated shiver. "Ooh. Yes and thank you and may I have some more."

"Lots of mathematical terms sound that way. I think it's because they were all coined by men. 'Hypotenuse' is downright lewd."

" 'Quadrilateral' brings rather carnal images to mind."

She was silent for a long time. Then one of her dark eyebrows arched. "Not so many as 'rhombus.' "

Good Lord. That word was wicked. Her pronunciation of it did rather wicked things to him. He had to admire the way she didn't shrink from a challenge, but came back with a new and surprising retort. One day, she'd make some fortunate man a very creative lover. ~ Tessa Dare

Command of English, spoken or written, ranks at the top in business. Our main product is words, so a knowledge of their meaning and spelling and pronunciation is imperative. If a man knows the language well, he can find out about all else. ~ William Feather

The word for woman is Gy (pronounced hard, as in Guy); it forms itself into Gy-ei for the plural, but the G becomes soft in the plural like Jy-ei. They have a proverb to the effect that this difference in pronunciation is symbolical, for that the female sex is soft in the concrete, but hard to deal with in the individual. ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton

In 1963, when I assigned the name "quark" to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been "kwork." Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word "quark" in the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark." Since "quark" (meaning, for one thing, the cry of a gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with "Mark," as well as "bark" and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as "kwork." But the book represents the dreams of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the "portmanteau words" in Through the Looking Glass. From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry "Three quarks for Muster Mark" might be "Three quarts for Mister Mark," in which case the pronunciation "kwork" would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature. ~ Murray Gell-Mann

Wellesley's president, Nannerl Overholser Keohane, approved a broad rule with a specific application: The senior thesis of every Wellesley alumna is available in the college archives for anyone to read - except for those written by either a 'president or first lady of the United States.' ~ Bill Dedman

I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit. I didn't think anything of what he had done to the city's name. Later I heard men who could manage their r's give it the same pronunciation. I still didn't see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieves' word for dictionary. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better. ~ Dashiell Hammett

Early in a career that began in 1912 when he was 19 years old, Romain de Tirtoff, the Russian-born artists who called himself Erté after the french pronunciation of his initials, was regarded as a 'miraculous magician,' whose spectacular fashions transformed the ordinary into the outstanding, whose period costumes made the present vanish mystically into the past, and whose décors converted bare stages into sparkling wonderlands of fun and fancy. When his career ended with his death in 1990, Erté was considered as 'one of the twentieth-century's single most important influences on fashion,' 'a mirror of fashion for 75 years,' and the unchallenged 'prince of the music hall,' who had been accorded the most significant international honors in the field of design and whose work was represented in major museums and private collections throughout the world.

It is not surprising that Erté's imaginative designs for fashion, theater, opera, ballet, music hall, film and commerce achieved such renown, for they are as crisp and innovative in their color and design as they are elegant and extravagant in character, and redolent of the romance of the pre- and post-Great War era, the period when Erté's hand became mature, fully developed and representative of its time. Art historians and scholars define Ertés unique style as transitional Art Deco, because it bridges the visual gab between fin-de-siècle schools of Symbolism, with its ethereal quality, Art Nouveau, with its high orn ~ Jean Tibbetts

If I stop being on good behaviour for a moment, my dark little secret is that I don't actually believe many people in the art world have much feeling for art and simply cannot tell a good artist from a weak one, until the artist has enjoyed the validation of others - a received pronunciation. ~ Charles Saatchi

PRONUNCIATION GUIDE:

Ailith: A-lith ("noble war"; "ascending, rising")
Andriana: An-dree-ana, or Dree, for "Dri" ("warrior")
Asher: Ash-er ("happy one")
Azarel: Ah-zah-rell ("helper")
Bellona: Bell-oh-na ("warlike")
Chaza'el: Chazah-ell ("one who sees")
Kapriel: Kah-pree-ell (variant of "warrior")
Keallach: Key-lock ("battle")
Killian: Kill-ee-un ("little warrior"--though he's not so little in my novel!)
Raniero: Rah-near-oh ("wise warrior")
Ronan: Row-nun ("little seal"; I know. Not as cool, right? But he was named Duncan at first draft and I had to change it due to publisher request, and "Ronan" sounded like a medieval, cool warrior name to me. I overlooked the real translation in favor of the man he became in my story. And that guy, to my mind, is more like a warrior, with the spray of the sea upon his face as he takes on the storm--which is like a seal!)
Tressa: Tre-sah ("late summer")
Vidar: Vee-dar ("forest warrior") ~ Lisa Tawn Bergren

Company names without clear pronunciation or spelling won't last. ~ David Rusenko

But perhaps nothing speaks more clearly for the absurdities of English pronunciation than that the word for the study of pronunciation in English, orthoepy, can itself be pronounced two ways. ~ Bill Bryson

This is a huge foyer. She spun in a slow circle, taking in the high ceilings.
She'd said the word using its French pronunciation, foy-ay. Cletus said it that way. The rest of us said foy-er, like it's spelled, because we lived in the United States and weren't pretentious nut jobs. Not that I thought Sarah was a pretentious nut job or made such a judgment about all people based on their pronunciation of that single word.
Just Cletus. He said foy-ay and was most definitely a pretentious nut job. ~ Penny Reid

Biting into a samosa is like trying to pronounce words in English, you have to shape your mouth in a way to get every bit. ~ Alain Bremond-Torrent

Cheers,' she said as I left, 'and don't forget you're seeing Matt and I on Monday.'
I thought for a moment she'd said 'matineye', an East End pronunciation of 'matinee'. Was I meant to review it?
Then I remembered Matt was the production editor.
'Me won't forget,' me muttered as me went downstairs. ~ Sebastian Faulks

Poetry remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

But you say it "in-TREE-ging", LJ, not "in-trig-you-ing".' I said it back to her, 'In-TREE-ging.' (Okay, this is a problem with books. But the only one.) ~ Stephanie Butland

Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

For my nymphet I needed a diminutive with a lyrical lilt to it. One of the most limpid and luminous letters is "L". The suffix "-ita" has a lot of Latin tenderness, and this I required too. Hence: Lolita. However, it should not be pronounced as you and most Americans pronounce it: Low-lee-ta, with a heavy, clammy "L" and a long "o". No, the first syllable should be as in "lollipop", the "L" liquid and delicate, the "lee" not too sharp. Spaniards and Italians pronounce it, of course, with exactly the necessary note of archness and caress. Another consideration was the welcome murmur of its source name, the fountain name: those roses and tears in "Dolores." My little girl's heartrending fate had to be taken into account together with the cuteness and limpidity. Dolores also provided her with another, plainer, more familiar and infantile diminutive: Dolly, which went nicely with the surname "Haze," where Irish mists blend with a German bunny - I mean, a small German hare. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

My uncle is from Argentina, so I grew up hearing Spanish. My Spanish isn't very good, but my pronunciation isn't terrible. ~ Moby

Even after all these years, she still said the word "gig" self-consciously, in the same way that she always said "croissant" with the proper French pronunciation, but with an apologetic, self-deprecating look to make up for her pretentiousness. ~ Liane Moriarty

I think my style as far as vocal delivery and even down to the pronunciation of certain words is so deliberate. ~ Miguel

she will stride up to the client, shake his hand firmly (yet femininely), while looking him warmly (yet confidently) in the eye and smiling innocently, and delivering her name unto him with perfectly clipped Received Pronunciation, showing off her pretty (thank-god-they're-not-too-thick) lips coated in a discreet shade of pink, baring her perfect teeth as he adjusts to the collision between reality and expectation, and tries not to show it while she assumes control of the situation and conversation. ~ Bernardine Evaristo

Dance Like A Pronunciation ~ Gagan Khiwani

My father always wanted to be 'Col-bear.' He lived in the same town as his father, and his father didn't like the idea of the name with the French pronunciation. So my father said to us, 'Do what you want. You're not going to offend anybody.' And he was dead long before I made my decision. ~ Stephen Colbert

Grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down here, - if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it. ~ Charles Dickens

I know that. I just don't feel it sometimes. Over there I felt like I
hadn't a care in the world. Things felt so good and it was almost as
if every muscle in my body relaxed the moment I landed there. I
haven't laughed so much in years. I felt like a 23-year-old, Steph. I
haven't felt like that much lately. I know this probably sounds weird
but I felt like the me that I could have been.
I liked that I didn't have to look out for somebody else while I
walked down the street. I didn't have the fifty near heart attacks per
day that I usually get when Katie goes missing or puts something in
her mouth that she shouldn't. I didn't have to dive onto the road
and hold her back just in time from being hit by a car. I liked that I
didn't have to give out, correct people on their pronunciation or
make threats. I liked laughing at a joke without my sleeve being
tugged at and being asked to explain. I liked having adult conversations
without being interrupted to cheer and applaud a silly dance
or the learning of a new word. I liked that I was just me, Rosie, not
mummy, thinking just about me, talking about things I liked, going
places I liked to go without having to worry about nappy changes,
bottle feeding or sleepy-head tantrums. Isn't that awful? ~ Cecelia Ahern

His English was exceptional. There was a glottal sound in his voice, but it was not harsh. I'd often asked him to help me with my sparse Arabic, trying to get my pronunciation of this or that word right. "Shukran." "Afwan." "Qumbula." Thank you. You're welcome. Bomb. ~ Kevin Powers

One of the things that I'm realizing is that in voice-over work, you have to actually do more work with your facial muscles and your mouth. You have to kind of exaggerate your pronunciation a little bit more, whereas with live action, you can get away with mumbling sometimes. ~ Mark Valley

I recognized the words "domestic violence" because the Japanese use the same words, only with blockier pronunciation. " Domesuchikku baiorensu". I think it's weird they use the same word; I'm pretty sure they invented domestic violence independently of us English-speakers, at the same time we were inventing it independently of them. ~ Tim Rogers

Demosthenes overcame and rendered more distinct his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth. ~ Plutarch

There is an old Italian proverb about the nature of translation: "Traddutore, traditore!" This means simply, "Translators-traitors!" Of course, as you can see, something is lost in the translation of this pithy expression: there is great similarity in both the spelling and the pronunciation of the original saying, but these get diluted once they are put in English dress. Even the translation of this proverb illustrates its truth! ~ Daniel Wallace