Short and Long Vowels in English
Vowel length (i.e., "long" and "short"), when applied to English, has several different related meanings.
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Famous quotes containing the words short, long, vowels and/or english:
“The attitude is we live and let live. This is actually an amazing change in values in a rather short time and it’s an example of freedom from religion.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
“Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. On the farm the weather was the great fact, and men’s affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice. But in Black Hawk the scene of human life was spread out shrunken and pinched, frozen down to the bare stalk.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.”
—Edward Gibbon (1737–1794)