"Twang" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lapierre repaired to the cottage, and LeFroy at his post in the storehouse nodded sagely to himself as the notes of the girl's rich contralto floated loud and clear above the twang of ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... popular, every one must be able to take part in it. It must cease to be a highly specialized business. It must be put on a basis where the ordinary person can snap the flying wires of a machine, listen to their twang, and know them to be true, just as any one now thumps his rear tire to see whether ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... very rich brogue, which I shall no more attempt to imitate than Captain Wilding's affectation. For indeed there seem to be as many ways of pronouncing English as there are people that speak it, and even in Norfolk itself I have met with people who were not free from something like the Suffolk twang. Seeing, I suppose, that I was disappointed by this answer, he leant over and whispered in ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... in the Merchant of Venice. He read me the Play; and very well; thoroughly understanding the text: with clear articulation, and the moderate emphasis proper to room-reading; with the advantage also of never having known the Theatre in his youth, so that he has not picked up the twang of any Actor of the Day. Then he read me King John, which he has some thoughts of editing next after Richard III. And I was reminded of you at Ipswich twenty-eight years ago; and of your Father—his look up at Angiers' Walls as he went out in Act ii. I wonder ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... ——, is a poor little weakly Israelite, but very inoffensive, although he speaks with a horrible Yankee twang, which Mr Sargent and the Judge ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... thought him by his face to be Scottish; nor could his accent undeceive me. For as there is a lingua franca of many tongues on the moles and in the feluccas of the Mediterranean, so there is a free or common accent among English-speaking men who follow the sea. They catch a twang in a New England Port; from a cockney skipper, even a Scotsman sometimes learns to drop an h; a word of a dialect is picked up from another band in the forecastle; until often the result is undecipherable, and you have to ask ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then, what with screaming, yelling, like the Indian war-whoop, cheering, and the thundering noise of the planks, grating along the deck, together with the ringing and clattering of their metallic vessels, they made altogether such a hideous "rattle-come-twang," that it was enough to raise all Chatham. All this was transacted in utter darkness. The officers doubtless saw, that bloodshed and promiscuous death would be the consequence of firing among the rioters, and prudently left it to subside with the darkness of the night. These disorderly ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... thought he heard the metallic twang of a stringed instrument in the Mission garden beyond his own, and remembered his contiguity to the church with a stir of defiance. But he was relieved, nevertheless. His pent-up emotion had found vent, and without the nervous excitement ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... my eyes, so he cheerfully remarked, in a strong twang known by some supercilious English as the "beastly ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... pleasantly as MacHeath and Griffin came into the gun chamber. "I just thought I'd come down and see how you were getting along," he said. His voice was a low tenor, with just a touch of Midwestern twang. "Sometimes the creative mind gets bogged down in the nth-order abstractions that have no discernible connection with anything at all." He chuckled. "When that happens, I drop everything and go out to find something mundane ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... that time it had been held that the nasal cavities must be cut off from the mouth by the closing of the soft palate against the back of the throat; that the passage of ever so little of the sound above the palate would give a nasal twang, and that the sound was reinforced and developed only in the cavities of the throat and mouth. My practice in Oral Surgery, coupled with my own vocal studies exposed this fallacy and revealed to me the true value ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... anything but "jell" or a repast anything but a "meal of victuals," and they said "dooty" and "roomor" and "noos" and "clawg," and sometimes would pop out "his'n" and "her'n." Several of the Stenes had been in business thirty years in metropolitan Chicago, yet they spoke in the twang of a Yankee hill-country. The women of the family were famous housekeepers—too neat to keep a cat lest there might be a cat hair on the carpet, and never liking visitors unless there was a dreadful note of preparation, and then they received grandly. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... it in. Lanpher plucked at the loose strings of his courage, and managed to draw out a faintly responsive twang. "I'll show you whether I got guts—" ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... general store, where they occupied themselves in making out an order for supplies and arranging for their delivery on the following day. The trader was a loquacious individual with the unmistakable "Yankee" twang and nasal whine of the man from that important speck of the ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... it, when Don Juan whipped it up round his leg and went off at full gallop. My little black horse knew perfectly well what had happened, though his head was exactly in the opposite direction; and he tugged with all his might, and leant over more than ever. The two lazos tightened with a twang, as though they had been guitar-strings; and in a moment the unfortunate bull was rolling with all his legs in the air, in the midst of a whirlwind of dust. Having thus humiliated him we let him go, and off he went at full speed. All ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... those who were of a more yielding nature. He soon caught the phraseology of his companion, and avoiding his intensity, was less likely to offend his hearers. His manner was better subdued to the social tone of ordinary life, his voice lacked the sharp twang of the backwoods man; and, unlike John Cross, he was able to modulate it to those undertones, which, as we have before intimated, are so agreeable from the lips of young lovers and fashionable preachers. At all events, John Cross ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... head of the stairway looked straight ahead where a man with a strong bow held himself close in the shadow of a great rock. When the twang of the bow string sounded, she loosened not her hand from that of Ka-yemo as he fell, but with her other hand she pulled aside the robe from her breast—also the necklace of the white metal, that not anything turn aside the point of the arrow which ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... The twang of a banjo trailed in above the voices, with a sound of scuffling. Loud laughter broke the thread of the song leaving "Mary Ann!" to soar out alone. Then the chorus ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... he caught the Davenports in their impositions. He and a long-legged friend went to one of the "dark seances" of the Davenports, during which musical instruments were to fly about over the heads of the audience, bang their pates, thrum, twang, etc. Addison and his friend took a front seat; as soon as the lights were put out they put out their legs too; stretching as far as possible; and, to use the unfeeling language of Mr. Addison, they "soon had the satisfaction ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... tone rang out well. Her instrument was a good one, very true and mellow, and her mother had taught her the liquid Spanish touch which showed it to its best advantage. Garnet also was doing her best. Her plectrum vibrated evenly and rapidly, and the metallic twang, her gravest fault, was not nearly so evident as usual. The audience, unfamiliar with these particular instruments, was not hypercritical, and so long as the players kept well together, and sounded no discords, their skill was judged to be excellent. The Barcarolle ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... by this time and could only look at his comrades in helpless wonder. Then the twang of a banjo sounded through the rooms and to the thrumming of the strings came a voice in ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... ensconced in Young R.'s favourite armchair, nodded ponderously and beat time to the twang of Mr. Jenkins's banjo, whereto Mr. Stevens sang in a high-pitched and rather shaky tenor the latest musical success yclept "Sammy." Thus, Mr. Jenkins strummed, Mr. Stevens trilled, and Mr. Brimberly alternately beat the tempo with ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... given to each of them to taste, and their opinion asked as to the condition, quality, goodness, or badness, of the wine. One tried it with the tip of his tongue; the other only put it to his nose. The first said the wine savored of iron; the second said it had rather a twang of goat's leather. The owner protested that the vessel was clean, and the wine neat, so that it could not taste either of iron or leather. Notwithstanding this, the two famous tasters stood positively ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Mr. Yorke, hitching his chair nearer the fire. "A lady! That has quite a romantic twang. We must guess who it is.—Rosy, whisper the name low to your father. Don't let ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... characteristic of his age and class. He could have entered into this circle of strangers—strangers for the most part, in all probability, to one another—and in ten minutes' time been one of them. Their screams, their twang, their slang, their gossip, their jolly banter, and their gay ineptitude would have been to him like a welcome home. But he was Norrie Ford, known by name and misfortune to every one of them. The boys and girls on the pier, the elderly women in the rocking-chairs, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... layout anyway, fellah, if it ain't on Earth?" broke in a voice with a decided East Side twang. Blake quickly turned and saw that the gangster had remained with them in that eery flight in the green net. There was an expression of dumfounded amazement upon the man's heavy face, and he was obviously anxious to be friendly with the two who now ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... in the best possible form the little drama of the talk in the garden. No shade of Mr. Temple Barholm's characteristics was lost. Palliser gave occasionally an English attempt at the reproduction of his nasal twang, but it was only a touch and not sufficiently persisted in to ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... gidayu as to why the native waxes enthusiastic over the pose and vivid gestures of the geisha, who is the one to interpret these dramatic recitations. To her falls the "kotoba." The descriptive lines are recited by a chorus to the harsh and effective twang of the samisen. The samisen may not afford music, but it can give expression to the emotional in feeling. The gidayu recitation is a favourite art with the Go Inkyo[u] Sama. Symposia are held, before which the old gentleman recites, ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... a good fellow. He was a tall, gaunt, long-headed man, with large features and spectacles, and a deep, internal voice, with a twang of rusticity in it; and he goggled over his plate, like a horse. I often thought that a bag of corn would have hung well on him. His laugh was equine, and showed his teeth upward at the sides. Wordsworth, who ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... the illustrious, one of which sounded strangely familiar to my ears), ending in some such style as this: "and other gentlemen and ladies, here present, the Lord Mayor drinks to you all in a loving-cup,"—giving a sort, of sentimental twang to the two words,—"and sends it round among you!" And forthwith the loving-cup—several of them, indeed, on each side of the tables—came slowly down with ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his legs in tune. Masha was all a-quiver, like birch-bark in the fire; her delicate fingers flew playfully over the guitar, her dark-skinned throat slowly heaved under the two rows of amber. All at once she would cease singing, sink into exhaustion, and twang the guitar, as it were involuntarily, and Tchertop-hanov stood still, merely working his shoulders and turning round in one place, while Nedopyuskin nodded his head like a Chinese figure; then she would break out into song like a mad thing, drawing herself up and holding up ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... bottle contains 160 grammes of a very inelegantly made emulsion, smelling of very common rose-water, with an unpleasant twang about it, and giving a strongly alkaline reaction. It consists of soap, glycerin, and cotton seed oil, made into ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... me, my dear Wilfrid. I am not quite so bad as I paint myself; say to yourself she has arthritis, she is sixty-five, and her new companion reads aloud with a twang; then you will only ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... itself—was a hatter by trade, who had come to Georgia in search of a precarious livelihood. He obtained permission to build him a little log hut by the side of a running stream; and, for a year or two, people going along the road could hear the snap and twang of his bowstring as he whipped wool or rabbit fur into shape. Some said he was from North Carolina; others said he was from Connecticut; but whether from one State or the other, what should a hatter do away off in the woods in Putnam County? Grandsir Kendrick, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... the vacation of some apartment which a condescending landlord has promised them after much negotiation for the week after next. The morning promenade is a wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent, could be found in no other place in the civilized world. A moralist would assuredly find here abundant food for reflection on the wonderful powers of self-deception possessed by mankind. We all get up at most inconvenient hours, swallow ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Southern boy, Charlie Maxfield by name, though known simply as "Chatz." He possessed all the traits to be found in boys who have been born and raised south of Mason and Dixon's line, was inclined to be touchy whenever he thought anyone doubted his honor, talked with a quaint little twang that was really delightfully musical, and taken in all had grown to be a prime favorite ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... string.) And why should I of common ills complain, Shot by a random shaft, a thoughtless swain? Unarm'd and unprepared to meet the foe, My naked bosom seem'd to court the blow. One cause, at least, to soothe my grief ensued; When I beheld the ruthless power subdued; And all unable now to twang the string, Or mount the breeze on many-colour'd wing. But never tawny monarch of the wood His raging rival meets, athirst for blood; Nor thunder-clouds, when winds the signal blow, With louder shock astound the world below; When the red ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... that one does not have to go to the woods or away from his own door to see and hear, is the hardy and ever- welcome meadowlark. What a twang there is about this bird, and what vigor! It smacks of the soil. It is the winged embodiment of the spirit of our spring meadows. What emphasis in its "z-d-t, z-d-t" and what character in its long, piercing note! Its straight, tapering, sharp beak is typical of its voice. ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... halted. The cavalry were keeping up a lively fire just ahead and on the right, and there was every prospect of an interesting time. Very soon we were ordered forward to skirmish. As the order was received, Smith remarked, with a peculiar twang to his heavy voice and an odd twist ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... to observe the attempt made, in addition, to disguise the fact that the delinquent I speak of (I had almost written renegade) is an Irishman. No wonder that he should attempt the disguise, for he must deeply feel his delinquency. In all cases such as this, the Cockney twang and occasional curtailment is assumed to overcome the brogue, but in vain. For the first half dozen words of each paragraph in a conversation it gets on well enough, but the conclusion is sometimes ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... well-known rivulet, And slake his death-thirst. Hark, that quick fierce cry That rends the utter silence! 'tis the whoop Of battle, and a throng of savage men With naked arms and faces stained like blood, Fill the green wilderness; the long bare arms Are heaved aloft, bows twang and arrows stream; Each makes a tree his shield, and every tree Sends forth its arrow. Fierce the fight and short, As is the whirlwind. Soon the conquerors And conquered vanish, and the dead remain Mangled by tomahawks. The mighty woods Are still again, the frighted bird comes ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... woman's voice that spoke, soft and wheedling, yet with a certain unpleasant twang in it. She spoke to Melody, who sat still, with folded hands, and head bowed as ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... Chatonville, who owns half Picardy, and had five thousand crowns out of him, with his horse and harness. 'Tis true that a French wench took it all off Peter as quick as the Frenchman paid it; but what then? By the twang of string! it would be a bad thing if money was not made to be spent; and how better than on ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fire to make the wound which it has inflicted hot; and for the same reason they put the arrow-head, if it has been recovered, into the fire. Moreover, they are careful to keep the bow-string taut and to twang it occasionally, for this will cause the wounded man to suffer from tension of the nerves and spasms of tetanus. "It is constantly received and avouched," says Bacon, "that the anointing of the weapon that maketh the wound will heal the wound itself. In ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... contemplating the grandeur of my native country and her miraculous growth," writes to me an old literary friend. The feeling normally breaks out in the grossest laudation of everything American. The ultra-provincial twang which we still hear amongst the servant-classes of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and which is so notable in the nouveau riche, modified by traditional nasalisation and, as in Australia, by climatic influences, is American and, therefore, the purest of English utterances. The obsolete vocabulary ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... from Olympus' lofty tops descends. Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound;(50) Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound. Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread, And gloomy darkness roll'd about his head. The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow, And hissing fly the feather'd fates below. On mules and dogs the infection first began;(51) And last, the vengeful arrows fix'd in man. For nine long nights, through all the dusky air, The pyres, thick-flaming, shot a dismal glare. But ere the tenth revolving ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... something in the very neglect, unfinish, careless nudity, slovenly hiatus, coming from intrinsic genius, and not "put on," that secretly pleases the soul more than the wrought and re-wrought polish of the most perfect verse?) Mark the native spice and untranslatable twang in the very names of his songs-"O for ane and twenty, Tam," "John Barleycorn," "Last May a braw Wooer," "Rattlin roarin Willie," "O wert thou in the cauld, cauld blast," "Gude e'en to you, Kimmer," "Merry hae I been ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the answer, with the true cockney twang. "Trade ain't very brisk. There's too bloomin' many of ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... play. The quiet that had reigned through the building for the last two hours was suddenly broken in upon by sounds of mirth and jollity—merry boyish voices talking, singing, some accompanying themselves with the twang of a banjo or the tinkle of a guitar; but Max, closing and putting his book aside, kept his seat, his elbow on the desk, his head on his hand, while with a far-away look in his dark eyes, he indulged in a ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... times, when tears and embracings were expected of near kindred; and, indeed, the King and Queen were equally occupied with their brother and nieces; but presently Eleanor heard a low voice observe, with a sort of sarcastic twang, 'If Madame has sufficiently satiated her tenderness, perhaps she will remember the due of others.' Margaret started as if stung, and Eleanor, looking up, beheld a face, young but sharp, and with a keen, hard, set look in the narrow eyes, ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in A, Heedless of what your next neighbour may say! Dance and be gay as a faun or a fay, Sing like the lad in the boat on the bay; Sing, play—if your neighbours inveigh Feebly against you, they're lunatics, eh? Bang, twang, clatter and clang, Strum, thrum, upon fiddle and drum; Neigh, bray, simply obey All your sweet impulses, stop not or stay! Rattle the "bones," hit a tinbottom'd tray Hard with the fireshovel, hammer away! Is not your neighbour your natural prey? Should ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... busy, he repeating forms, noting shades and tints, and I studying without pictorial intent, when we heard a hail in the road below our bank. It was New Hampshire, near the Maine line, and near the spot where nasal organs are fabricated that twang the roughest. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... sang and shouted, Keeping measure as I sped, To the harp-twang of the snow-shoe As it sprang beneath ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... with hands on hips, Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, Over and over the Maenads sang: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... To twang the lyre from time to time, or knock a few mellow plunks out of the harp, was regarded with much favor by the Anglo-Saxons, who were much given to feasting and merriment. In those pioneer times the "small and early" had not yet been introduced, but "the ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... own, and burst out a-laughing again; upon which we all fell a-laughing for half an hour. One of the Honest Fellows got behind me in the interim, and hit me a sound slap on the back; upon which he got the laugh out of my hands, and it was such a twang on my shoulders, that I confess he was much merrier than I. I was half angry; but resolved to keep up the good humour of the company; and after holloing as loud as I could possibly, I drank off a bumper of claret, that made me stare again. "Nay," says one of the Honest Fellows, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... sure to be met with. As he came towards it, however, he heard the loud sound of a man's voice going steadily on as if with some discourse. "Some preachment," said he to himself: "they've got a thorough-going Roundhead, I can hear his twang through his nose! Shall I go ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... essentially a New-Englander. His background was that of Boston and its remote suburbs. And when he preaches the necessity of the cooperative commonwealth, he does it with a Yankee twang. In fact, he is as essentially native American as Norman Thomas, the present leader of the ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... temperament would allow a single occupation. Then he picked from the ground a long, slender pencil of white wood, a sliver, perhaps, from the making of a spear shaft, and began strumming with it upon the taut sinew string. This made a twang of a new sort, and again the boy and girl were interested temporarily. But, at last, even this variation of amusement with the new toy became monotonous, and Bark ceased strumming and began a series of boyish experiments with his plaything. ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... with a stunning crash and clatter of blocks and sheets as the wind caught it on the other quarter, making the long switch of a mast to spring like a bow, while the weather-shrouds slacked up for a moment in bights, and then came back taut with a twang you might have heard a mile! We could now see, as the space opened behind the rock, another frightful jagged ledge, on which the rollers were heaving in liquid masses high up a precipitous rock, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... haunted by two white cranes. Oh! the terrors of that pond! How our little hearts would beat as we approached it; what fearful glances we would throw around! And if by chance a plash of a wild duck, or the guttural twang of a bullfrog, struck our ears, as we stole quietly by—away we sped, nor paused until completely out of the woods. Then, when I reached home, what a world of adventures and imaginary terrors would I have to ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Horace tasted very much like Aristotle;—you know I am fond of variety. Terentius I could not have told from Menander. Naso, to my astonishment, was Nicander in disguise. Virgilius had a strong twang of Theocritus. Martial put me much in mind of Archilochus—and Titus Livius was positively Polybius and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Andrew: scout mee for him at the corner of the Orchard like a bum-Baylie: so soone as euer thou seest him, draw, and as thou draw'st, sweare horrible: for it comes to passe oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharpely twang'd off, giues manhoode more approbation, then euer proofe it selfe would haue earn'd ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... but I do not know what train of thought my casual remark had suggested in him, for presently he began to speak. He spoke in a low voice, without any expression, but his accents were educated, and it was a relief to hear him after the twang and the vulgar intonations which for some time had wounded ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... Yeo, for the very purpose of holding up to ridicule that time-honored melody, had put into it the true nasal twang, and rung it out as merrily as he had done perhaps twelve years before, when he got up John Oxenham's anchor in Plymouth Sound. And it befell also that Ayacanora, as she stood by Amyas's side, watching the men, and trying to make out their chat, heard it, and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... of one vowel or another, solely according to the shape which the "resonator" assumes, and which may be described as a mould into which the tone is cast. The quality of the voice also—its throatiness, its nasal twang, its shrillness, harshness, and ugliness, or its purity, roundness, fulness, and beauty—depend mainly upon the nature of the resonator, and upon the way in which we work it. It is, therefore, a matter of the highest importance to be fully acquainted ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... young simple hearts to one another! Magdalen had called on the Sisters and asked them to tea at the Goyle, and there had come to the conclusion that Sister Beata was an admirable, religious, hardworking woman, of strong opinions, and not much cultivated, with a certain provincial twang in her voice. She had a vehement desire for self-devotion and consecration, but perhaps not the same for obedience. She sharply criticised all the regulations of the Sisterhoods with which she was acquainted, wore a dress ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... peninsular war in Europe, the trumpeter of a French cavalry corps had a fine charger assigned to him, of which he became passionately fond, and which, by gentleness of disposition and uniform docility, equally evinced its affection. The sound of the trumpeter's voice, the sight of his uniform, or the twang of his trumpet, was sufficient to throw this animal into a state of the greatest excitement; and he appeared to be pleased and happy only when under the saddle of his rider. Indeed he was unruly and useless to every body else; for once, on being removed to another ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... breath, his thin nostrils dilating, as if the air did not rush in fast enough to cool his blood, while Silas Peckham was speaking. The Head of the Apollinean Institute delivered himself of these judicious sentiments in that peculiar acid, penetrating tone, thickened with a nasal twang, which not rarely becomes hereditary after three or four generations raised upon east winds, salt fish, and large, white-bellied, pickled cucumbers. He spoke deliberately, as if weighing his words well, so that, during his few remarks, Mr. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... already told the Prioress that his men had spied a lad accompanying the shepherd who escorted the lady, and who, he thought, had a certain twang of south country speech; and no sooner had he carved for the ladies, according to the courtly duty of an esquire, than the inquiry began as to who had found the maiden and where she had been lodged. Prioress Agnes, who had already broken her fast, sat ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a sparse grove of young white oaks. A half dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... world over. Amiable giggling Forey girls called Clare, The Betrothed. Dark man, or fair? was mooted. Adrian threw off the first strophe of Clare's fortune in burlesque rhymes, with an insinuating gipsy twang. Her aunt Forey warned her to have her dresses in readiness. Her grandpapa Forey pretended to grumble at bridal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... twang with it, which will wear out my name for poetry. Give him a smile from me till I see him. If you do not drop down before, some day in the week after next I will come and take one night's lodging with you, if convenient, before you go hence. You shall name it. We are in town to-morrow speciali ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... pine warbler's song may be varied by the individual singer from time to time. I heard one fine bird singing in the stereotyped form. As he sang a flicker flicked in the distance. Whereupon the pine warbler sang again, the same trill but with a tittering twang about it that just jocosely imitated the flicker. I saw no other warbler or other bird near enough to be the beneficiary of this joke. He did it just for himself, and his motions as he flew over to the next tree seemed a visible ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... high roof watching the Spanish soldiers in the batteries working their guns, when, happening to look round, they saw a crossbow protruded from a window of the warehouse to their right, and a moment afterwards the sharp twang of the bow was heard. There was nothing unusual in this; for although firearms were now generally in use the longbow and the crossbow had not been entirely abandoned, and there were still archers in the English army, and many still held that ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... your nimble deity. So Hercules might challenge priority of us both, because he can throw the bar farther, or lift more join'd stools at the arm's end, than we. If this might carry it, then we, who have made the whole body of divinity tremble at the twang of our bow, and enforc'd Saturnius himself to lay by his curled front, thunder, and three-fork'd fires, and put on a masking suit, too light for a reveller of eighteen to be ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... with its queer foreign twang, reminded me, in some uncomfortable way, of a rusty saw,—the things he said, and the manner in which he said them, were alike intended to add to my discomfort. It was solely because the feat was barely possible that he only ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Angler, as White is in his Selbourne. Cowper, however, even at his worst, is a highly cultivated methodist; if he is sometimes enthusiastic, and possibly superstitious, he is never coarse or unctuous. He speaks with contempt of "the twang of the conventicle." Even his enthusiasm had by this time been somewhat tempered. Just after his conversion he used to preach to everybody. He had found out, as he tells us himself, that this was a mistake, that "the ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... twang of it from your friend Captain Con; only you don't rattle the eighteenth letter of the alphabet in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Mary Milliner; and who soon taught him how to gain much greater sums than in this way of life, by methods which he until then never heard of, and will I am confident, to this day carry the charms of novelty to most of my readers. Of these the first she put upon him was going on what they call the "twang," which is thus managed: the man who is the confederate goes out with some noted woman of the town, and if she fall into any broil, he is to be at a proper distance, ready to come into her assistance, and by making a sham quarrel, give her an opportunity of getting off, perhaps after ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... your banjo, Matt," urged Joe. "Nothing like the merry old twang to make the new boys feel ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... twang of Yankeedom is a plant that needs no nourishing. Its roots are grown wide and deep; so much so, that those who love it need not fear that it will pine away and die, if it bears no fruit of song, but ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... current in the neighbourhood of Bremen and Muenster, translated into the old Norse language, and no doubt somewhat modified by the influence of Scandinavian legends on the mind of the translator. In its present form it is not a poem but a prose work, and though the flow of the ballad and the twang of the minstrel's harp still often make themselves felt even through the dull Latin translation of Johan Peringskiold, there are many chapters of absolutely unredeemed prose, full of genealogical details and ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... corner saloon came the twang of a mandolin; and half a dozen Mexican labourers began singing a Spanish folk song. In a shop at his right a Jap girl sold soda water; in another open door an old Chinaman mended shoes; and from another came the click of ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... tried to sing, 'Home Sweet Home'; and the writer of this memory of those old Pacific days sat in a chair in the doorway and wondered where we should all be the next year. For, as we sang and danced, and the twang, twang of Sera's guitar sounded through the silent night without, Tom Devine, the American, held up his hand to MacBride, and ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... entirely conducted on these principles; man cannot live by Almavivery alone; and the Great Creature, having failed upon several theatres, was obliged to step down every evening from his heights, and sing from half-a-dozen to a dozen comic songs, twang a guitar, keep a country audience in good humour, and preside finally over the ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ascend by easy stages, through various grades of hunger, from the economic appetite on the first floor, where the plebian stomach is stayed with tea and lentils, even to the very house-top, where are administered comforting syrups and a menu that is sweetened throughout its length with the twang of lutes, the clash of cymbals, and the ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... whir and a twang the elastic wood flung upwards, and the bound man was shot away from its tip with the speed of a lightning flash. He sang through the air, spinning over and over with inconceivable rapidity, and the great crowd of rebels held their breath in silence as they watched. He passed high above the city ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... I that I should take exception to the guffaw? Ten years ago I too guffawed, though I hope with not quite the Kensingtonian twang. The first Cezannes I ever saw seemed to me to be very funny. They did not disturb my dreams, because I was not in the business. But my notion about Cezanne was that he was a fond old man who distracted himself by daubing. I could not ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... were shouting riotously. The wind came suffing through the swaying arms of the bearded waving hemlocks—Druid priests officiating at some age-old sacrament. Then a night-hawk swerved past with a hum of wings like the twang of a harp string. ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... venom'd stang, That shoots my tortur'd gums alang; And thro' my lugs gies mony a twang, Wi' gnawing vengeance; Tearing my nerves wi' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... kings: If ducal Nardac, Lilliputian peer, Or Glumglum's humbler title soothe thy ear: Nay, would kind Jove my organs so dispose, To hymn harmonious Houyhnhnm through the nose, I'd call thee Houyhnhnm, that high-sounding name; Thy children's noses all should twang the same; So might I find my loving spouse of course Endued with all the virtues of ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... shot!" he burst out suddenly, with a plaintive twang. Then he grinned. The boy still in him had prompted the absurdity. And the rough warrior had laughed at it. Boy and warrior faced each other, either surprised that the other existed. The boy flushed resentfully at the veteran's contemptuous ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... speeches. These worthies delivered harangues on the subject of horses and their uses; and the speeches were really very respectable, and not too long, but were delivered in general with a strong nasal twang. There were persons from all parts of America; Ohio, ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... foundation to it, rose a rustling sound as of a forest of reeds through which a breeze went rhythmically. Into this stole the broken song of a thin instrument with a timbre rustic and antique as the timbre of the oboe, but fainter, frailer. A twang of softly-plucked strings supported its wild and pathetic utterance, and presently the almost stifled throb of a little tomtom that must have been placed at a distance. It was like ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... had been done the deserter; "but half the British seamen one falls in with nowadays call themselves Americans, in order to escape serving his Majesty. I rather think this rascal is a Cornish or a Devonshire man; he has the twang and the nasal sing-song of that part of the island. If an American, however, we have a better right to him than the French; speaking our language and being descended from a common ancestry and having a common character, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... teasing his womenfolk. One of his favourite methods of doing this was to station himself on a chair in front of us, and, with his brown eyes lighted up with a whimsical smile, talk broad Scotch, in a Highland nasal twang, by the hour, until we cried for mercy. Yet he was decidedly sensitive about that same Scotch, and his feelings were much wounded by hearing me express a horror of ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... glittering figures that dashed upon them so fearlessly. As they swept through, Menna had enough to do to manage his steeds, which were wild with excitement; but Ramses' bow was bent again and again, and at every twang of the bowstring a Hittite champion fell from his chariot. Behind the King came his household troops, and all together they burst through the chariot brigade of the enemy, leaving a long trail marked by dead and wounded men, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... mechanical piano which had stopped during the speech-making suddenly started up with a loud twang of "Under the Bamboo Tree." Two Indian boys laughed and started on a run for the merry-go-round and ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... of some one running in the grove. He caught a glimpse of a white robe among the trees. He felt sure that this was the man whom the crow had seen, and that he was trying to run away. He fitted an arrow to his bow quickly. He drew the string. Twang! And the arrow which never missed sped like a flash of light ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... they cannot make me associate with these people." And she recalled with a shudder the gnarled, horny hand which she had touched in jumping from the cart,—she had never felt anything like it; the homely speech, and the nasal twang with which it was delivered; the uncouth garb (good stout butternut homespun!) and unkempt hair and beard of the "odious old savage," as ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... feathers plucks Crumpled and cheap, and barbs with iron will: The hour that passes is her quiver-boy; When she draws bow, 'tis not across the wind, Nor 'gainst the sun, her haste-snatched arrow sings, For sun and wind have plighted faith to her: Ere men have heard the sinew twang, behold, In the butt's ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... his fingers, "and hey for the life I love! Away with tanbark and filthy vats and foul cowhides! I will follow thee to the ends of the earth, good master, and not a herd of dun deer in all the forest but shall know the sound of the twang of my bowstring." ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... saw the forms of her dead children and dead grandchildren peopling the barge, and waving their hands to her in solemn measure; then, as the rope tightened and came up, dropping diamonds, it seemed to vibrate into two parallel ropes and strike her, with a twang, though it was far off. When she looked again, there was no barge, no river, no daylight, and a man whom she had never before seen held a ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... a combination of Irish brogue and idiom, Western twang and idiom, and scraps of curiously formal diction taken from the story-books and newspapers, He now hurled a strange mass of language at the head of his son. "What do I keep? What do I keep? What do I keep?" he demanded, in a voice of thunder. He slapped his knee impressively, ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... lanyards was severed by the keen blade in Brook's hand. The others attached to the same shroud immediately began to render through the deadeye, throwing an extra strain upon the lanyards of the other shrouds, one of which immediately parted under Bob's knife; then twang, twang, twang, one after the other, they rapidly yielded, until, as the last lanyard parted, crash went the mizen-mast short off by the deck and away to leeward, carrying away the saloon ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... head appeared through the opening above, followed by a body. It was that of one of the native guides. Voices were heard coming through the passage: one voice had a twang to it that surely Mrs. Peterkin had heard before. Another head appeared now, bound with a blue veil, while the eyes were hidden by green goggles. Yet Mrs. Peterkin could not be mistaken,—it was—yes, it was ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... his mouth turned down; His accent caught a nasal twang; He oiled his hair; there might be heard The grace of God in every word Which Peter ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... on to camp, but Fox-eye would not turn back. He drew his arrows from the quiver, and prepared to fight. But, even as he placed an arrow, a Snake had crawled up by his side, unseen. In the still air, the Piegan heard the sharp twang of a bow string, but, before he could turn his head, the long, fine-pointed arrow pierced him through and through. The bow and arrows dropped from his hands, he swayed, and then fell forward on the grass, dead. But now the warriors came ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... July have passed away, Like a tide. Doors are open, windows wide. Why in stuffy London stay?" Sing the Sirens (slyboots they!) With a Tennysonian twang, To the Tourist, (Not the poorest You may bet your bottom dollar, Which those Sirens aim to "collar." Demoiselles, excuse ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... a Friday in Lent. Here is Bob of the —— Circuit, who has made a fortune in Railroad Committees, and whose dinners are so good—bellowing out with Tancred and Godfrey, "On to the breach, ye soldiers of the cross, Scale the red wall and swim the choking foss. Ye dauntless archers, twang your cross-bows well; On, bill and battle-axe and mangonel! Ply battering-ram and hurtling catapult, Jerusalem is ours—id Deus vult." After which comes a mellifluous description of the gardens of Sharon and the maids of Salem, and a prophecy ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... deserted by his troops. His wife saved the situation. She upbraided her husband as he was scaling the palisades to escape by night, fortified him with wine, girded his sword on herself, and caused her female attendants—of whom there were "several tens"—to twang bowstrings. Katana, taking heart of grace, advanced single handed; the Yemishi, thinking that his troops had rallied, gave way, and the Japanese soldiers, returning to their duty, killed or captured ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... constable," was the answer, given with a country twang that caused several spectators to smile. "I jest seen him comin' and I see he was headed for them people what's goin' to Europe, I expect. I didn't want their voyage spoiled, so I jest ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... Tommies used to sing 'em. There was one song with a chorus, and it said something like this." The Infant dropped into the true barrack-room twang: ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... almost opposite, and now, as I listened to hear the traitorous signal of murder—"Pax vobiscum"—and the twang of bow-strings, on the night there rang a voice, a woman's voice, soft but wondrous clear, such as never I knew from any lips but hers who then spoke; that voice I heard in its last word, "Jesus!" and still it is ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... once safe restored. Compressing next nerve and notch'd arrow-head He drew back both together, to his pap Drew home the nerve, the barb home to his bow, And when the horn was curved to a wide arch, 145 He twang'd it. Whizz'd the bowstring, and the reed Leap'd off, impatient for the distant throng. Thee, Menelaus, then the blessed Gods Forgat not; Pallas huntress of the spoil, Thy guardian then, baffled the cruel dart. 150 Far as a mother wafts the fly aside[7] That haunts her slumbering babe, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... on by the spirits of just men made perfect, I ceased to search further for it in that procession,—for though the men composing it might be just enough, they were evidently a long way from perfection. And when it is remembered that all these harps were twang-twanging away furiously, and that their strings were being swept over with no Bochsa fingers, few will wonder that I longed for cotton-wool, and blessed the memory of Paganini, who had only one string to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... There she had to attend lectures and demonstrations. There she met the doctors and students. Well, a pretty lot they were, one way and another. When she had put on flesh and become pink and bouncing she was just their sort: just their very ticket. Her voice had the right twang, her eyes the right roll, her haunches the right swing. She seemed altogether just the ticket. And ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... allowed to see the inhabitant of the big black case; and now that the deanery was so nearly deserted, Posy's fingers had touched the strings and had produced an infantine moan. "Grandpa, let me do it again." Twang! It was not, however, in truth, a twang, but a sound as of a prolonged dull, almost deadly, hum-m-m-m-m! On this occasion the moan was not entirely infantine,—Posy's fingers having been something too strong,—and the case was closed and locked, and ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... and honey on her cousin, in lieu of gossip, for entertainment. The stories were old to her, except as she found a new listener to them, and they had never had any vital interest for her. They had simply made her imagination twang pleasantly, and now they could ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Twang! The arrow sped through the air, but it was too dark for them to follow its flight with their eyes. With their hearts in their ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... knee, bracing himself as firmly as he could against the rock, and, with his shield above his head and his sword in his hand, awaited the attack of the enraged animal. He heard the twang of the bow behind him; then he felt a mighty blow, which beat down his shield and descended with terrible force upon his helmet, throwing him forward on to his face. Then there was a heavy blow on his back; and it was well for him that he had on backpiece as ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... smiling bland, He yields them to her curious hand, When, instant, twang! the arrow flew, So just her aim, it pierced him through, Right through his heart, the luckless lad! (A heart, to do him right, he had); All prone he lies, in throbbing anguish, Through many an hour to pine and languish, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... a singer of no common stamp, and of whom any nation might be proud, and I have often met men in society sing together most delightfully, either duets, trios, or quartettos, and totally devoid of the nasal twang, or, as the reader will observe, delightful it ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... you think, Francis," he said, "of making a plan to see Florence and Sienna and Orvieto on the way down, instead of going straight to Rome?" He spoke in precise, particularly-enunciated words, in a public-school manner, but with a strong twang of South Wales. ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... and there through the gloomy cabin lay the victims of the fell malady, in every stage of suffering, and in every attitude of misery. Their cries and lamentings mingled with the creaking of the bulk-heads and the jarring twang of the dirty lamp, whose irregular swing told plainly how oscillatory was our present motion. I turned from the unpleasant sight, and was about again to address myself to slumber with what success I ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... through his dark glasses upon his paper or chinked his dirty little bottles, and occasionally swore savagely at the boys, audible if invisible, outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace lay the fragments of half a dozen smashed bottles, and a pungent twang of chlorine tainted the air. So much we know from what was heard at the time and from what was subsequently seen ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... hair on his head as stiff as a pump-handle; and scarcely crediting his ears, he returned a searching look at the cat, who very quietly proceeded in a sort of nasal twang— ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... slightly mournful but of a delightful freshness. The third section with the appoggiaturas realizes a vivid vision of country couples dancing determinedly. Who plays No. 2 of this set? It, too, has the "native wood note wild," with its dominant pedal bass, its slight twang and its sweet-sad melody in C sharp minor. There is hearty delight in the major, and how natural it seems. No. 3 in E is still on the village green, and the boys and girls are romping in the dance. ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... catch any Hottentot twang, if that's what you mean. Nor did he say, "Caesar and Pompey berry much alike, 'specially Pompey," which is the only specimen of negro language I can remember just ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... swept ahead under Rob's paddle, but this time he missed, and down went the otter again. It did not dive deep, however, and the shaft of the arrow told where it might be expected. As its round head, with bright, staring eyes, thrust up above the water, there came the twang of the young Aleut's bow, and the second arrow chugged into the body of the otter. Even the older hunter greeted this ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... sounded again and nearer. There was a little laugh in a girl's voice, then the dry twang of the plucked strings of a guitar, then silence. After a minute the guitar strings twanged again, and a girl's voice began to sing a peasant ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... contributed to my restlessness. My head was close to the crimson curtain,—the sexual division of the boat, —behind which I continually heard whispers and stealthy footsteps; the noise of a comb laid on the table or a slipper dropped on the floor; the twang, like a broken harp-string, caused by loosening a tight belt; the rustling of a gown in its descent; and the unlacing of a pair of stays. My ear seemed to have the properties of an eye; a visible image pestered my fancy in the darkness; the curtain was withdrawn between ...
— Sketches From Memory (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... speech, she delivered in quiet, Neutral American, the speech that covers the great prairie states and is as near accentless and pure as American English ever is. It branded her Ozark twang as a lie, and a great many other things about her. But it added something very solid to her ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... old woman, "is the third night, and these fires must blaze yet eleven nights and days more, during which time the axe is not seen in the hand of the forester, nor doth the bow twang in the woods of Tarapajan; neither may he which seeth these rites depart till they ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... by the revelation of this vast breach in her omniscience as the bright twang of knowingness in her voice had ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... is that of communities who are seldom utterly illiterate, and as seldom scholarly. I have listened in vain for any national twang, drawl, or peculiar intonation. The young people, perhaps, speak rather faster than English of the same age, that is all. On the other hand, anything like picturesque, expressive language within the limits of grammar is rarely found. Many good words in daily use in rural England have been dropped ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... tweed pants, green with age, and strapped on the inside with a lighter-coloured and newer material; also a very dirty coloured cotton shirt, open in front, and showing a large expanse of hairy chest. His voice was husky from much swearing at profligate cattle, and there was a curious nasal twang in his tone, a sort of affectation of Americanism that was a departure from the ordinary ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... scarce a note. There were quartettos and overtures by gentlemen performers whose names and faces I know not, and such was the never ceasing rattling and noise in the card-room, where I was kept almost all the evening, that a general humming of musical sounds, and now and then a twang, was ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... armor-bearer, and their entrance into each village was signaled by a loud hymn sung by the excited pair. The very tone in which Davenport preached has been perpetuated by his admirers; it was a nasal twang, which had great effect. A law was passed against those irregularities, and Davenport was thrown into Hartford jail, where he sang hymns all night, to the great admiration of his friends. On being released he went to Lyme, where, after sermon, a bonfire of idols was ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various |
