Phonological History of English High Front Vowels/met-mat Merger

Famous quotes containing the words history, english, high, front and/or vowels:

    It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.
    Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)

    O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
    O stay and hear, your true love’s coming,
    That can sing both high and low.
    Trip no further, pretty sweeting.
    Journeys end in lovers meeting,
    Every wise man’s son doth know.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    No one is promiscuous in his way of dying. A man who has decided to hang himself will never jump in front of a train.
    A. Alvarez (b. 1929)

    Playing “bop” is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
    Duke Ellington (1899–1974)