Phonological History of English High Front Vowels/mitt-meet Merger

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

    I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    If English is spoken in heaven ... God undoubtedly employs Cranmer as his speechwriter. The angels of the lesser ministries probably use the language of the New English Bible and the Alternative Service Book for internal memos.
    Charles, Prince Of Wales (b. 1948)

    I asked my mother for fifty cents
    To see the elephant jump the fence.
    He jumped so high he reached the sky,
    And didn’t get back till the Fourth of July.
    —Unknown. I Asked My Mother (l. 1–4)

    I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plow for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three-o’-clock-in-the-morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    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 (1817–1862)