I'm very aware when I'm speaking to the English of how flat my Mid-Atlantic American voice is.
quote by Martin C. Smith
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hat Too Flat
We come in on the morning scan
All the way from far arcturus
Bringing with us peace and good will
From the margins of space and time
Our women are slung down low to the ground
Theyre very good youve probably had one
Our men are brave, studly and wise,
A pleasure to behold
Right away we walk the walk
More or less we talk the talk
But every time we make our play
Their eyes get wide they run away
cause the hat stays too flat
My hat is way too flat
My english she is much better now
But my hat remains too flat
The man smells a rat
And thats the end of that
My english it is more better now
But my hat is still too flat
Fair arcturus fashion forecast:
Skirts will be shorter
Legs stay long
Virtual raincoats are coming back
Hats as always continued flat
Back at home the machines work hard
We folk like to take it easy
Honing our awareness of
The finer things of life
Here when I go down to my job
I work hard for what seems like a long time
I look at my watch: fifteen minutes
It felt like half a day!
Soon enough we break for lunch
Me and the boys now Im one of the bunch
But no one wants to sit with me
So tell me what can the matter be?
The hat stays too flat
My hat is way too flat
My english she is much better now
But the hat is just too flat
A little thing like that
They dont get past the hat
My english it is more better now
But my hat remains too flat
song performed by by Steely Dan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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American Without Tears #2
December 1965 in caracas
When arnie laflem took a piece of the pie
When he packed up the casino chips, the iou and the abacus
And switched off the jukebox in a a fool such as i
He was a leg man who was open to offers
But he couldnt get her off his mind as he passed the tourist office
And as he entertained himself singing just like sammy davis junior
He toyed with her trip to miami
For money like that
He could have sweet talk in her ear
Now they dont speak any english
Just american without tears
It was an idea that he dangled on his knee
And nursed it like his coffee cup
When he couldnt find any other way
It always seemed to come to him
While the day was dipping down
And sun was like a lightbulb
Being swallowed by a clown
He took her for everything
He took her for his only one
He took her out of coventry and over to idaho
But the war wound that he carried home
Wasnt really visable
When bullets were forgotton
She lived dowdry, down, and miserable
And she seemed to be crying for year after year
And says, you dont speak any english
Just american between tears.
Honey she said to me will you turn down the radio.
You havent slept a wink since we came to havana
When youre gonna get the strength to go over to florida
All you ever listen to is the voice of america.
It was the story of a young english puppet
Who took up with a soldier boy
And thought she would profit.
Just like me she found out what true love is about
Anyway shes in new orleans it would never work out
Oh she seemed to be crying for year after year
Now you dont speak any english
Just american between tears.
Just american without tears.
For you seem to be crying year after year
Now you dont speak any english
Just american without tears.
Just american without tears.
song performed by by Elvis Costello
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It is a culture voice, but it is a very American culture voice, and I am very used to English culture voice. So I had to work like hell to flatten those R's.
quote by Christopher Plummer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Printing ballots in multiple languages costs millions of dollars every year. It also discourages immigrants from integrating into American society and gaining the benefits that come from speaking English.
quote by Ernest Istook
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A number of Americans were used, most often unwillingly, by North Korea to arm spies with English-speaking skills so they could target American interests in South Korea and beyond.
quote by Robert Jenkins
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This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America.
quote by William Labov
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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English should be our official language. Reading and speaking English are requirements to become a citizen.
quote by Ernest Istook
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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This Is No Haiku
This is no haiku one can expect.
Expressed in one line Japanese verse.
Or separated into lines,
To give an English speaking mind...
Time to find profound definition.
To sit to meditate upon and reflect.
Seventeen sound units,
Divided into three parts...
Five units to start.
Seven in the middle.
And five to end.
With given specific syllables,
To have the reader read again.
Without comprehending,
The meaning a haiku intends.
This is no haiku one can expect.
Expressed in one line Japanese verse.
Or separated into lines,
To give an English speaking mind...
Time to find profound definition.
To sit to meditate upon and reflect.
Although not haiku,
Two shoes tied to one foot...
Does not make the other,
Less aware of obstacles.
Two shoes ties to a pair of feet,
Makes it easier to walk alone
On an adventured path.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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A Child's Nightmare
Through long nursery nights he stood
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
Purring in my haunted ear
That same hideous nightmare thing,
Talking, as he lapped my blood,
In a voice cruel and flat,
Saying for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."
That one word was all he said,
That one word through all my sleep,
In monotonous mock despair.
Nonsense may be light as air,
But there's Nonsense that can keep
Horror bristling round the head,
When a voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."
He had faded, he was gone
Years ago with Nursery Land,
When he leapt on me again
From the clank of a night train,
Overpowered me foot and head,
Lapped my blood, while on and on
The old voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."
Morphia drowsed, again I lay
In a crater by High Wood:
He was there with straddling legs,
Staring eyes as big as eggs,
Purring as he lapped my blood,
His black bulk darkening the day,
With a voice cruel and flat,
"Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..." he said, "Cat! ... Cat!..."
When I'm shot through heart and head,
And there's no choice but to die,
The last word I'll hear, no doubt,
Won't be "Charge!" or "Bomb them out!"
Nor the stretcher-bearer's cry,
"Let that body be, he's dead!"
But a voice cruel and flat
Saying for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!"
poem by Robert Graves
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I'm the worst auditioner, really, really bad. I mean, you're being judged and I'm just so aware of it that it consumes me. I can't relax, I'm tied in knots, so the voice is very taut and tense. You're so aware that you're acting 'cause you're sitting across from this lady with a piece of paper who's going, ''I'm. Going. To. Shoot. You. If. You. Don't. Blah, blah, blah,'' in this emotionless voice. It's foul. I hate it.
Heath Ledger in EW.com (May 2001)
Submitted by Diana Frone, MTTLC
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Judgement Of A Word
Global internet on line
American spelling machine?
When searching online
will flag British judgement
as spelling incorrect
will insist on US judgment
yet is this judgement correct?
Both judgment and judgement
occur with equal frequency set?
One spelling English one American
what a bother when both are correct?
Will you your online dictionary update?
Your own personal ‘judgment call' abridgment?
This choice spelling inconsistencies will assist?
Still wondering why the two spellings resist?
To this question trade English American
politics dark flavours a colonial twist?
War of 1812 sabres parent British patron.
Oxford English Dictionary preferred
judgement a war of words is absurd.
1812 fosters nationalism independent.
Judgement remained form sanctioned
in the Bible in new Revised Version.
Older English spelling recommended.
Shakespeare plays judgment US spelt.
Judgement rules British English text.
Rule is spell consistently either is best.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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I will be speaking to you in my own voice
This is my voice,
Sad, prolonged, fever pitched,
With some intermittent turbulence
In between a concentrated discourse
But
Still in a slow, smooth, sailing like
A canoe on a very clear silent running river
And
Some rapids, and rocks somewhere, may distort,
This voice
Of mine,
Or
At the edge for which a waterfall rages,
This
Voice
Of
Mine,
May sound like a violent fall of a hundred heavy waters,
Not a drip, but a hundred heavy, heavy falling waters,
As though the whole word is falling down
On your
Shoulder,
This is my voice, sad, on a prolonged agony,
But somehow, when tickled may move into
A mystery, not discounting the possibility of
An ecstasy,
A fantasy,
And you, my love, my beautiful reader, may hear this voice
Speaking to you in a hush of silence,
This is my voice; hear it for what it is, that is all that I ask of you,
I am myself speaking. I am real, this voice of mine.
Listen to me.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Nineteen
This is my voice,
Sad, prolonged, fever pitched,
With some intermittent turbulence
In between a concentrated discourse
But
Still in a slow, smooth, sailing like
A canoe on a very clear silent running river
And
Some rapids, and rocks somewhere, may distort,
This voice
Of mine,
Or
At the edge for which a waterfall rages,
This
Voice
Of
Mine,
May sound like a violent fall of a hundred heavy waters,
Not a drip, but a hundred heavy, heavy falling waters,
As though the whole word is falling down
On your
Shoulder,
This is my voice, sad, on a prolonged agony,
But somehow, when tickled may move into
A mystery, not discounting the possibility of
An ecstasy,
A fantasy,
And you, my love, my beautiful reader, may hear this voice
Speaking to you in a hush of silence,
This is my voice; hear it for what it is, that is all that I ask of you,
I am myself speaking. I am real, this voice of mine.
Listen to me.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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This Is My Voice
This is my voice,
Sad, prolonged, fever pitched,
With some intermittent turbulence
In between a concentrated discourse
But
Still in a slow, smooth, sailing like
A canoe on a very clear silent running river
And
Some rapids, and rocks somewhere, may distort,
This voice
Of mine,
Or
At the edge for which a waterfall rages,
This
Voice
Of
Mine,
May sound like a violent fall of a hundred heavy waters,
Not a drip, but a hundred heavy, heavy falling waters,
As though the whole word is falling down
On your
Shoulder,
This is my voice, sad, on a prolonged agony,
But somehow, when tickled may move into
A mystery, not discounting the possibility of
An ecstasy,
A fantasy,
And you, my love, my beautiful reader, may hear this voice
Speaking to you in a hush of silence,
This is my voice; hear it for what it is, that is all that I ask of you,
I am myself speaking. I am real, this voice of mine.
Listen to me.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not.
quote by Diane Wakoski
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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English Rose
The English Rose (end of a dream)
I once met an English rose, slightly frizzled at the edges.
Her eyes was as green as the Atlantic sea, this alone
should have been a warning, ‘cause I know how untrue
the sea can be. Her voice sounded like tinkling bells and
her artistic hands could to wonders. Embraced we slept in
the good tiredness of exhausted lovers. But in heaves of
love she often whispered another man’s name, it filled me
with foreboding. I rang and rang, no answer, went to her
house, she wasn’t there, her neighbor said she had gone
to Spain and she mentioned a name I had so often heard.
The good woman saw my tears, hugged me and whispered.
“She is not worthy of your love.” Years went by I saw her at
a supermarket’s check out. Her bloom had gone, no longer
a rose, just a woman with a bitter lined face carrying a bag
of grocery.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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When an American heiress wants to buy a man, she at once crosses the Atlantic. The only really materialistic people I have ever met have been Europeans.
quote by Mary McCarthy
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I worked on my voice for Sweet Dreams, but only to match my speaking voice to Patsy's actual singing voice. That was my way into that character.
quote by Jessica Lange
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Atlantic City
She walks the boards in Atlantic City
Oblivious to the looks of pity.
She sleeps under the boards in Atlantic City
with a cat she found. She calls it Kitty.
And across the way the casinos boom
where the high-rollin' gamblers have a room
with beds so plush, a rich man's tomb.
It's cleaned and swept with a servant's broom.
She awakens and finds a bench in Atlantic City.
She brushes away the sand from her eyes so gritty.
Once long ago she was young and pretty.
That was way before Atlantic City.
She remembers bits and pieces of way back then,
but can't put them together of how or when.
Her mind has snapped over and again
and she's become a forgotten denizen.
All that she owns are in two small bags.
All that she wears are worn out rags.
She picksup cigarette butts and takes a few drags
and walks the boards of Atlantic City.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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To become an American citizen, we require people to read, write and speak in English. That is to help them to assimilate in our melting pot, truly to become Americans. We mock that when the cherished right to vote does not involve English any more.
quote by Ernest Istook
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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