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Cacophony
Phonaesthetics (also spelled phonesthetics in North America) is the study of the beauty and pleasantness associated with the sounds of certain words or parts of words. The term was first used in this sense, perhaps by during the mid-20th century and derives . Speech sounds have many aesthetic qualities, some of which are subjectively regarded as ''euphonious'' (pleasing) or ''cacophonous'' (displeasing). Phonaesthetics remains a budding and often subjective field of study, with no scientifically or otherwise formally established definition; today, it mostly exists as a marginal branch of psychology, phonetics, or poetics. More broadly, the British linguist David Crystal has regarded phonaesthetics as the study of "phonaesthesia" (i.e., sound symbolism and phonesthemes): that not just words but even certain sound combinations carry meaning. For example, he shows that English speakers tend to associate unpleasantness with the sound ''sl-'' in such words as ''sleazy'', ''slime'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North American English
North American English (NAmE) encompasses the English language as spoken in both the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar of American English, U.S. English and Canadian English, linguists often group the two together. Canadians are generally tolerant of both British and American spellings, although certain words always take British spellings (e.g., ''cheque'') and others American spellings (e.g., ''tire'' rather than ''tyre''). Dialects of English spoken by United Empire Loyalists who fled the American Revolution (1775–1783) have had a large influence on Canadian English from its early roots. Some terms in North American English are used almost exclusively in Canada and the United States (for example, the terms ''diaper'' and ''gasoline'' are widely used instead of ''nappy'' and ''petrol''). Although many English speakers from outside North America regard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Approximant Consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like (as in ''rest'') and semivowels like and (as in ''yes'' and ''west'', respectively), as well as lateral approximants like (as in ''less''). Terminology Before Peter Ladefoged coined the term ''approximant'' in the 1960s, the terms ''frictionless continuant'' and ''semivowel'' were used to refer to non-lateral approximants. In phonology, ''approximant'' is also a distinctive feature that encompasses all sonorants except nasals, including vowels, taps, and trills. Semivowels Some approximants resemble vowels in acoustic and articulatory properties and the terms ''semivowel'' and ''glide'' are often used for these non-syllabi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English And Welsh
"English and Welsh" is J. R. R. Tolkien's inaugural O'Donnell Memorial Lecture of 21 October 1955. The lecture sheds light on Tolkien's conceptions of the connections of race, ethnicity, and language. Publication It was first published in ''Angles and Britons'' in 1963 and was republished in '' The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays'' in 1983. Contents Tolkien begins with an overview of the terms " British", " Celtic", " Germanic", " Saxon", " English" and " Welsh", explaining the last term's etymology in '' walha''. Tolkien also addresses the historical language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ... between English and Welsh since the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, including Welsh loanwords and substrate influence found in English, and co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Jean Nathan
George Jean Nathan (February 14, 1882 – April 8, 1958) was an American drama critic and magazine editor. He worked closely as an editor with H. L. Mencken bringing the literary magazine ''The Smart Set'' to prominence and while co-founding and editing ''The American Mercury'' and ''American Spectator (literary magazine), The American Spectator''. Early life and education Nathan was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on February 14, 1882, the son of Ella (Nirdlinger) and Charles Naret Nathan. He was graduated from Cornell University in 1904. There, he was a member of the Quill and Dagger society and an editor of ''The Cornell Daily Sun''. Relationships and marriage Nathan had a reputation as a "ladies' man" and the character of Addison De Witt, the waspish theater critic who squires a starlet (played by a then-unknown Marilyn Monroe) in the 1950 film ''All About Eve'' was based on Nathan. Beginning in the late 1920s, Nathan had a romantic relationship with actress Lillian G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Payson Terhune
Albert Payson Terhune (December 21, 1872 – February 18, 1942) was an American writer, dog breeder, and journalist. He was popular for his novels relating the adventures of his beloved collies and as a breeder of collies at his Sunnybank Kennels, the lines of which still exist in today's Rough Collies. Biography Albert Payson Terhune was born in New Jersey to Mary Virginia Hawes and the Reverend Edward Payson Terhune. His mother was a writer of household management books and pre-Civil War novels under the name Marion Harland. Terhune had four sisters and one brother, though only two of his sisters lived to be adults: Christine Terhune Herrick (1859–1944); and Virginia Terhune Van De Water (1865–1945). Sunnybank () was originally the family's summer home, with Terhune making it his permanent residence in 1912. He was educated at Columbia University where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1893. From 1894 to 1916, he worked as a reporter for '' The Evening World''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hendrik Willem Van Loon
Hendrik Willem van Loon (January 14, 1882 – March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian, journalist, and children's book author. Life Van Loon was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the son of Hendrik Willem van Loon and Elisabeth Johanna Hanken. He immigrated to the United States in 1902 to study at Harvard University and then Cornell University, where he received his AB in 1905. In 1906 he married Eliza Ingersoll Bowditch (1880–1955), daughter of a Harvard professor, by whom he had two sons, Henry Bowditch and Gerard Willem. The newlyweds moved to Germany, where van Loon received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1911 with a dissertation that became his first book, ''The Fall of the Dutch Republic'' (1913). He was a correspondent for the Associated Press during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and again in Belgium in 1914 at the start of World War I. He lectured at Cornell University from 1915 to 1916; in 1919 he became an American citizen. Van Loon had two late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet and writer of fiction, plays and screenplays based in New York; she was known for her caustic wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. Parker rose to acclaim, both for her literary works published in magazines, such as ''The New Yorker'', and as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. In the early 1930s, Parker traveled to Hollywood to pursue screenwriting. Her successes there, including two Academy Awards, Academy Award nominations, were curtailed when her involvement in left-wing politics resulted in her being placed on the Hollywood blacklist. Dismissive of her own talents, she deplored her reputation as a "wisecracker". Nevertheless, both her literary output and reputation for sharp wit have endured. Some of her works have been set to music. Early life and education Also known as Dot or Dottie, Parker was born Dorothy Rothschild in 1893 to Jacob Henry Rothschild and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Allan Robertson
David Allan Robertson (October 17, 1880 – July 15, 1961) was an American academic who served as the 5th president of Goucher College. He was also a professor at the University of Chicago in English and drama. Early life Robertson was born on October 17, 1880, to John Robertson and Christina Mitchell, both immigrants from Scotland. He was a member of the prominent Dawson family, which was associated with McGill University. After high school, he entered the University of Chicago, graduating with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1902. Academic career During his graduate studies at the University of Chicago, Robertson served as an instructor in English. He eventually became a full professor in English and drama and also served in various roles in the university's administration. From 1918 to 1923, he was an administrator with the Association of American Universities, and from 1924 to 1930, Robertson was an assistant director with the American Council on Education. In 1930, Robertson was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Nunberg
Geoffrey Nunberg (June 1, 1945– August 11, 2020) was an American lexical semantician and author. In 2001, he received the Linguistics, Language, and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistic Society of America for his contributions to National Public Radio's ''Fresh Air''. Nunberg was the author of a number of popular books, among them '' Going Nucular: Language, Politics and Culture in Controversial Times'' (2004). He is primarily known for his broadcast work interpreting linguistic science for lay audiences, though his contributions to linguistic theory are also well regarded. Nunberg received his doctorate from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 1977 for his dissertation, ''The Pragmatics of Reference''. Prior to his PhD, Nunberg received a Bachelor's degree from Columbia College and a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied under William Labov. Following his education, Nunberg began working as a postdoctoral scholar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" or simply "the Bard". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in Lon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semantics
Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction between sense and reference. Sense is given by the ideas and concepts associated with an expression while reference is the object to which an expression points. Semantics contrasts with syntax, which studies the rules that dictate how to create grammatically correct sentences, and pragmatics, which investigates how people use language in communication. Lexical semantics is the branch of semantics that studies word meaning. It examines whether words have one or several meanings and in what lexical relations they stand to one another. Phrasal semantics studies the meaning of sentences by exploring the phenomenon of compositionality or how new meanings can be created by arranging words. Formal semantics (natural language), Formal semantics relies o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noun
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, dead, or imaginary): ''mushrooms, dogs, Afro-Caribbeans, rosebushes, Mandela, bacteria, Klingons'', etc. * Physical objects: ''hammers, pencils, Earth, guitars, atoms, stones, boots, shadows'', etc. * Places: ''closets, temples, rivers, Antarctica, houses, Uluru, utopia'', etc. * Actions of individuals or groups: ''swimming, exercises, cough, explosions, flight, electrification, embezzlement'', etc. * Physical qualities: ''colors, lengths, porosity, weights, roundness, symmetry, solidity,'' etc. * Mental or bodily states: ''jealousy, sleep, joy, headache, confusion'', etc. In linguistics, nouns constitute a lexical category (part of speech) defined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
