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 and, short, long, vowels and/or english:
“If true that notion, which but few contest,
That in the way of wit short things are best,
Then in good epigrams two virtues meet,
For tis their glory to be short and sweet.”
—Anonymous. From A Collection of Epigrams (1727)
“I cannot be a materialistbut Oh, how is it possible that a God who speaks to all hearts can let Belgravia go laughing to a vicious luxury, and Whitechapel cursing to a filthy debaucherysuch suffering, such dreadful sufferingand shall the short years of Christs mission atone for it all?”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“But you must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know, that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“As no one can tell what was the Roman pronunciation, each nation makes the Latin conform, for the most part, to the rules of its own language; so that with us of the vowels only A has a peculiar sound.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the the land,
In England there shall be dear breadin Ireland, sword and brand;
And poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand,
So, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand,
Of the fine old English Tory days;
Hail to the coming time!”
—Charles Dickens (18121870)