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Betty Botter
Betty Botter is a tongue twister written by American author Carolyn Wells in her book "The Jingle Book" published in 1899. It was originally titled ''The Butter Betty Bought''. By the middle of the 20th century, it had become part of the Mother Goose collection of nursery rhymes. Construction The construction is based on alliteration, using the repeated two-syllable pattern with a range of vowels in the first, stressed syllable. The difficulty is in clearly and consistently differentiating all the vowels from each other. Except for (''bought a''), they are all short vowels: * (''batter'') * (''better'', ''Betty'') * (''bitter'', ''bit o’'') * (''Botta'') * (''butter'') Lyrics When it was first published in "The Jingle Book" in 1899, it read: Variations Elise isaacson's version Betty botter bought a bit of butter but the butter Betty bought was bitter so Betty bought a bit of better butter Bronte Alberts' version Betty Botter bought a bit of butter But the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tongue Twister
A tongue twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly, and can be used as a type of spoken (or sung) word game. Additionally, they can be used as exercises to improve pronunciation and fluency. Some tongue twisters produce results that are humorous (or humorously vulgar) when they are mispronounced, while others simply rely on the confusion and mistakes of the speaker for their amusement value. Types of tongue twisters Some tongue twisters rely on rapid alternation between similar but distinct phonemes (e.g., ''s'' and ''sh'' ), combining two different alternation patterns, familiar constructs in loanwords, or other features of a spoken language in order to be difficult to articulate. For example, the following sentence was said to be "the most difficult of common English-language tongue twisters" by William Poundstone. These deliberately difficult expressions were popular in the 19th century. The popular "she sells seashells" tongue twister wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in Vowel length, quantity (length). They are usually voice (phonetics), voiced and are closely involved in Prosody (linguistics), prosodic variation such as tone (linguistics), tone, intonation (linguistics), intonation and Stress (linguistics), stress. The word ''vowel'' comes from the Latin word , meaning "vocal" (i.e. relating to the voice). In English, the word ''vowel'' is commonly used to refer both to vowel sounds and to the written symbols that represent them (, , , , , and sometimes and ). Definition There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one Phonetics, phonetic and the other Phonology, phonological. *In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English language, English "ah" or "oh" , produ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PBS Kids
PBS Kids (stylized as PBS KIDS) is the branding used for nationally distributed children's programming carried by the U.S. public television network PBS. The brand encompasses a daytime block of children's programming carried daily by most PBS member stations, a 24-hour channel carried on the digital subchannels of PBS member stations (sometimes called the PBS Kids Channel or PBS Kids 24/7), and its accompanying digital platforms. PBS Kids programming typically targets children between the ages of 2 and 8, with a focus on live-action and animated series featuring educational and informative ( E/I) components; some of its programs were developed under grants with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as part of PBS and CPB's " Ready-to-Learn" initiative. From 2004 to 2013, a late-afternoon sub-block known as PBS Kids Go! broadcast programming targeting elementary school-aged viewers 6 to 8; the brand was discontinued in 2013 to focus more on the main PBS Kids brand. PBS ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, it is the second-most-visited website in the world, after Google Search. In January 2024, YouTube had more than 2.7billion monthly active users, who collectively watched more than one billion hours of videos every day. , videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and , there were approximately 14.8billion videos in total. On November 13, 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ). Google expanded YouTube's business model of generating revenue from advertisements alone, to offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content produced by and for YouTube. It also offers YouTube Premium, a paid subs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage Site. The original governing Board of Visitors included three List of presidents of the United States, U.S. presidents: Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, the latter as sitting president of the United States at the time of its foundation. As its first two Rector (academia)#United States, rectors, Presidents Jefferson and Madison played key roles in the university's foundation, with Jefferson designing both the #1800s, original courses of study and the university's #Academical Village, architecture. Located within its 1,135-acre central campus, the university is composed of eight undergraduate and three professional schools: the University of Virginia School of Law, School of Law, the University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of books or individual stories in the public domain. All files can be accessed for free under an open format layout, available on almost any computer. , Project Gutenberg had reached over 75,999 items in its collection of free eBooks. The releases are available in plain text as well as other formats, such as HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, and Plucker wherever possible. Most releases are in the English language, but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that provide additional content, including region- and language-specific works. Project Gutenberg is closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an Internet-based community for proofr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vowel Length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual length (phonetics), duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels. On one hand, many languages do not distinguish vowel length phoneme, phonemically, meaning that vowel length alone does not change the meanings of words. However, the amount of time a vowel is uttered can change based on factors such as the phonetic characteristics of the sounds around it: the phonetic environment. An example is that vowels tend to be pronounced longer before a voiced consonant and shorter before a voiceless consonant in the standard accents of General American English, American and Received Pronunciation, British English. On the other hand, vowel length is indeed an important phonemic factor in certain languages, meaning vowel length can change word-meanings, for example in Arabic phonology#Vowels, Arabic, Czech phonology, Czech, Dravidia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or Sentence (linguistics), sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as increased loudness and vowel length, full articulation of the vowel, and changes in Tone (linguistics), tone. The terms ''stress'' and ''accent'' are often used synonymously in that context but are sometimes distinguished. For example, when emphasis is produced through pitch alone, it is called ''Pitch-accent language, pitch accent'', and when produced through length alone, it is called ''quantitative accent''. When caused by a combination of various intensified properties, it is called ''stress accent'' or ''dynamic accent''; English uses what is called ''variable stress accent''. Since stress can be realised through a wide range of Phonetics, phonetic properties, such as loudness, vowel length, and pitch (which are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syllable
A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are most often consonants). In phonology and studies of languages, syllables are often considered the "building blocks" of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic metre; properties such as stress, tone and reduplication operate on syllables and their parts. Speech can usually be divided up into a whole number of syllables: for example, the word ''ignite'' is made of two syllables: ''ig'' and ''nite''. Most languages of the world use relatively simple syllable structures that often alternate between vowels and consonants. Despite being present in virtually all human languages, syllables still have no precise definition that is valid for all known languages. A common criterion for finding syllable bound ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carolyn Wells
Carolyn Wells (June 18, 1862 — March 26, 1942) was an American mystery author and poet. Life and career Born in Rahway, New Jersey, she was the daughter of William Edmund and Anna Potter Wells (née Woodruff). After finishing school, she worked as a librarian for the Rahway Library Association. Her first book, ''At the Sign of the Sphinx'' (1896), was a collection of literary charades. Her next publications were ''The Jingle Book'' and ''The Story of Betty'' (1899), followed by a book of verse entitled ''Idle Idyls'' (1900). After 1900, Wells wrote numerous novels and collections of poetry. Carolyn Wells wrote a total 170 books. During the first ten years of her career, she concentrated on poetry, humor, and children's books. According to her autobiography, ''The Rest of My Life'' (1937), she heard ''That Affair Next Door'' (1897), one of Anna Katharine Green's mystery novels, being read aloud and was immediately captivated by the unraveling of the puzzle. From that point o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of syllable-initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. It is often used as a literary device. A common example is " Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Historical use The word ''alliteration'' comes from the Latin word ''littera'', meaning "letter of the alphabet". It was first coined in a Latin dialogue by the Italian humanist Giovanni Pontano in the 15th century. Alliteration is used in the alliterative verse of Old English poems like Beowulf, Middle English poems like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Old Norse works like the Poetic Edda, and in Old High German, Old Saxon, and Old Irish. It was also used as an ornament to suggest connections between ideas in classical Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit poetry. Today, alliteration is used poetically in various languages around the world, including Arabic, Irish, German, Mongolian, Hungari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest university in the English-speaking world; it has buildings in every style of Architecture of England, English architecture since late History of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon. Oxford's industries include motor manufacturing, education, publishing, science, and information technologies. Founded in the 8th century, it was granted city status in 1542. The city is located at the confluence of the rivers Thames (locally known as the Isis) and River Cherwell, Cherwell. It had a population of in . It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. History The history of Oxford in England dates back to its original settlement in the History of Anglo-Saxon England, Saxon period. The name � ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
