Speech Patterns
Speech Patterns
- Accent … almost as authentic as that of the white-jacketed medico peddling hand cream to the TV millions —Harvey Swados
- Accent … thick as porridge —W. P. Kinsella
- Diction … each word distinct and unslurred, as if he were a linguistics professor moderating a panel discussion on the future of the language —T. Coraghessan Boyle
- The doctor’s English was perfect, pure Martha’s Vineyard; he sounded like Ted Kennedy’s insurance salesman —T. Coraghessan Boyle
- Dragging his words along like reluctant dogs on a string —Edith Wharton
- Had spoken the lines without expression, running them past, uninspired, one behind the other like passing freight cars —William Brammer
- He [Edmund Wilson] spoke in a curiously strangled voice, with gaps between his sentences, as if ideas jostled and thrashed about inside him, getting in one another’s way as they struggled to emerge, which made for short bursts —Isaiah Berlin, New York Times Book Review, April 12, 1987
- His facile elocution … which had so long charmed them, was now treated like warm gruel made to put cowards to sleep —Émile Zola
- His statements are often preceded by stretches of silence as painful as the space between a stutterer’s syllables, as he tries to translate his images into words —Ira Wood
- Inflections that rise and fall with a tidal surge equal to that of the Bay of Fundy —Richard F. Shepard about comedian Jackie Mason, New York Times
- Intoned monotonously like a sleep-walker —MacDonald Harris
- Mouthing the words and nodding to himself like an actor memorizing his lines —Donald Seaman
- Repeated slowly, as if he were sounding out syllables in a book —Jonathan Valin
See Also: REPETITION
- The rest of it [a remark] was delivered at a clipped, furious pace, like Morse code —Jonathan Valin
- Said one word, carefully pursed in his mouth, spat out like a grape pip —John Fowles
- The sentences were spoken like sentences from a judge summing up, bit by bit —V. S. Pritchett
- Short brief staccato sentences like slaps —William Faulkner
- Spaces her adjectives like little whiplashes —John Fowles
- Spacing his words as if for a particularly stupid and stubborn person —Nancy Huddleston Packer
- Spat out the words like orange seeds —Dorothy Francis
- Speak falteringly, like an unrehearsed actor —Anon
- Speaking [in a heavy tone] … as if he were dropping words like molten lead —G. K. Chesterton
- Speak like a death’s head —William Shakespeare
- Speak … like a telegram —Dashiell Hammett
- Spitting the word from her mouth … as if it were a poisonous seed —Flannery O’Connor
- Splutter and splash like a pig in a puddle —W. S. Gilbert
- Spoke clearly, but in a low and hesitant voice, as if he were translating from Spanish as he went along —Norman Mailer
- Spoke like a radio program —Ludwig Bemelmans
- Spoke more slowly than ever before and with difficulty, like someone who fears a stammer —Dan Jacobson
- Spoke slowly, with a kind of uniformity of emphasis that made his words stand out like the raised type for the blind —Edith Wharton
- Spoke very slowly and deliberately, like a man reading aloud from a difficult text —Jonathan Valin
- Sputtered out [words] like a wet fuse —Richard Moran
- Stutter like a new-clipped crow —George Garrett
- Talked flowingly like a medium —Anaïs Nin
- Talked like she had bugs in her mouth —Madison Smartt Bell
- Talked with commas, like a heavy novel —Raymond Chandler
- (He had developed an unfortunate habit of) talking like a Chinese fortune cookie —John Cheever
- (Tendency to) talk like a Sten gun —George F. Will about Hubert Humphrey
- Used the English language with dictionary precision … almost as if it were a foreign tongue he had learned perfectly —Lael Tucker Wertenbaker
- Use her words cautiously, like weapons that might slip and inflict a wound —Edith Wharton
- Words … dragging out like words in an anthem —G. K. Chesterton
- Words, each distinct and separate, like multicolored marbles —Francis King
- Words leaped out of his mouth like machine-gun bullets —Frank Conroy
- Words were being mouthed like signal flags —Norman Mailer