Phonological History of English High Front Vowels/pin-pen Merger

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

    History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
    But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

    I don’t wish to give offense when I suggest that this country should select a king, or even a queen, rather than a president. One isn’t that quick to shoot a king or a queen—the majesty of royalty, you see.
    David Webb Peoples, screenwriter. English Bob (Richard Harris)

    Optimism is the content of small men in high places.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    A man’s destination is his own village,
    His own cooking fire, and his wife’s cooking;
    To sit in front of his own door at sunset
    And see his grandson, and his neighbour’s grandson
    Playing in the dust together.
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

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