Quotes About Phrasing

A lot of people think the orchestra is playing and the conductor doesn't do very much, but the conductor's the person that gives shape to the music, gets the phrasing, and if he has really fine musicians in solo spots, the question is does he try to help them phrase, or does he let them go?

Do you believe in an afterlife? Do your personal beliefs include a life after death?—no matter how they phrase their snotty test, do the following. Simply look them in the eye, snort derisively, and retort, "Frankly, only a provincial ignoramus would even believe in death.

I love tremendous and sonorous words.

Don't utilize utilize. Use use.

He bantered us, challenged us, electrified us . . . At times his eloquence held us silent as images and some witty turn, some humorous phrase brought roars of applause. At times we cheered almost every sentence, like delegates at a political convention, At other moments we rose in our seats and yelled. There was something hypnotic in his rhythm and phrasing. His power over his auditors was absolute. {Garland's thoughts on the great Robert Ingersoll }

I swear that he is an alien. There is something about his phrasing that is so unpredictable and cool. It makes you wonder where it came from. I wish I could play like that. I listen to Jeff Beck and think, 'Bloody hell!' The way that Jeff Beck and his band play together is just amazing. Yeah, those guys definitely come from another planet.

The work resembles a breech delivery-one which is expressed in rhythmic lurches, stabs of phrase and vocal ornamentation designed to express agitation rather than decorative grace.

word choice and ordering (diction and syntax). He

I meant no offense, but sometimes being a reporter and being offensive can't be pulled apart, no matter how politely you phrase the question.

The selective instinct of the artist tells him when his language should be homely, and when it should be more elevated; and it is precisely in the imperceptible blending of the plain with the ornate that a great writer is distinguished. He uses the simplest phrases without triviality, and the grandest without a suggestion of grandiloquence.

I do believe that our modern English usage has become way too clipped and austere. I have been reading excerpts from the journals of 18th-century seafarers lately, and even the lowliest press-ganged deck-swabber turns a finer phrase than I do most days.

I appreciate people who try and use language in an interesting way.

There are many bad things in this world of ours, but the use of the word 'monetize' has to rank high among them. Also, 'incentivize.' Actually, all the '-ize' words, like 'contextualize' and 'utilize' and 'prioritize.' And - this is almost too horrible to type - 'juniorize.'

She sucks at her words as they come out. She seems to practise a constant fellatio on the words she pronounces.

If only he had a way with words he

I'm just trying to write a good story, strictly from imagination. People just think it's random, they don't see the rewriting, phrasing of characters, choosing the words, bringing the world to light in which the characters live in. That creates an illusion that this is real.

Silence marks time, saturates and shapes African-American art. Silences structure our music, fill the spaces - point, counterpoint - of rhythm, cadence, phrasing.

I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.

It's an odd experience reading interviews with yourself. Interesting, though. Of course, you know that the journalist will have edited, rephrased or even rewritten what you actually said, but you can't help feeling that there's a special kind of truth in the way someone else paints you, however subjective they might be.

But singing isn't just about belting it out, is it? It's not just who has the most wobble or the highest note, no, it's about phrasing, and being delicate, and getting just the right feeling from a song, the soul of it, so that something real happens inside you when a man opens his mouth to sing, and don't you want to feel something real rather than just having your poor earholes bashed in?

it's about phrasing, and being delicate, and getting just the right feeling from a song, the soul of it, so that something real happens inside you when a man opens his mouth to sing, and don't you want to feel something real rather than just having your poor earholes bashed in?" He

It was just a handle to wind up the tongue with.

Foot-and-a-half-long words.

Phrases can build grace into sentences. Taut declarations lend clarity, but too many of them can start to sound like a Dick-and-Jane story. A strategically placed phrase can turn a staccato burst into a more lyrical sentence. This is what we mean by "turning a phrase"—using our command of language and our mastery of the rhythms of a sentence to affect style as well as substance