Observations on Eloquence
precise speakers
don't coin metaphors
sloppy seakers,
for want of exact similies
create a new phrase
sometimes more colorful
originated for want of language
or poverty,
the test of a new phrase or metaphor
is time
if adopted or repeated
alas eloquence is the lilt
and cadence sonorus
baritone or tenor
poem by Shimon Weinroth
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Related quotes
Pardon My English
Please pardon my English
sorry I did not understand?
It is not your English
which is not at fault.
These native speakers
are speaking in idioms.
Idioms are fixed expressions
with nonliteral meanings.
A natural way of using language.
A natural way for native speakers to speak.
Your problem arises
because a fixed
distinctive expression
whose meaning
cannot be deduced
from the combined
meanings of its
actual spoken words
is not directly translatable.
Jargon and accents
betray speakers
places of origins
social background
and educational
class privileges
intonation inflection
betray mood character.
Note a
greater stress
emphasis
in pronouncing
a syllable
within a word
or a word
within a phrase.
An aspect
of situation
or issue
that is
emphasized
reveals
each speakers
main emphasis.
The best
speakers
are employing
contrasting
detail because
contrasting
decorative
features used
adds interest.
However
the most
persuasive
speakers
weight
their argument
with
lateral thinking
outside
the box
revealing
themselves
to be
master
orators
par excellent.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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I began thinking there should be an American phrase book, 'cause I've got an Italian phrase book, and an Arabic one... now a British one. I think it'd be pretty good to have an American phrase book.
quote by Joe Strummer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.
quote by Robert Cormier
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Our language is the reflection of ourselves. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.
quote by Cesar Chavez
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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36
a metaphor is easy to make
and so easy to recall
remember the cat's feet like a fog
leaving softly the harbor in the city?
remember a misery that jumps like a flea &
bites you and you cannot sleep
and you say life is like that
a flea
remember
you think of time as a growing child
a man,
a wild man running and chasing
virgins that must make most of their time
because
time is a-flying and
the rose that blooms today
tomorrow
may be dying
remember time in a bottle
remember life like a fruit fly trapped
trying to figure
out how to escape
and you say life is like that
a fruit fly
remember death
like a woman sleeping in her chambers
closing the curtains
and you say
death is like that
a mere closing of a curtain
just like that
remember how
loneliness is like a steel tunnel
you get in there,
some birds hover and fly away from you
you get in there,
and there seems to be no light visible
at the end
loneliness
life is like that
you see
metaphors and dissect every vein
every artery
every bone and
cartilage of
these metaphors that you
say do not exist
in prose
, , , , , , , , , , , that you say do not exist in my prose
mine is not poetry
mine is a poverty of poetry
and you claim
yours is the basket the cornocupia of true poetry
good for you, you are the prima donna
of this
dance
this quibble in poetry
it does not matter
give me some metaphors
about poverty, discrimination, meaninglessness,
purposelessness,
non-being, the metaphysics of early death
a being-in-distress
an addict
a streetchild
a battered wife
a cruel father
a hypocirte priest
an embittered professor
a disgruntled student
give me some metaphors about
corruption, lying presidents, secret killings
you are the master of metaphor
you are the queen of slave
metaphors
so be it.
make me a poem to the strictures of metaphor
give poems a strange face
a hybrid of dog and man
make them read and not understand
delude them
give them illusions
confusions
make them baffled, submissive, uncritical, uncomplaining
complacent,
bewilder them to your secret,
derivative and too personalized
metaphors
and you are happy
they do not understand a thing
and they will believe that you are God.
for those that we do not understand
we call it mystery
we call it metaphor
we call it
unquestionable.
let the oppression stay.
let the discrimination live in the metaphors that
you have made.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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A Metaphor Is Easy To Make
a metaphor is easy to make
and so easy to recall
remember the cat's feet like a fog
leaving softly the harbor in the city?
remember a misery that jumps like a flea &
bites you and you cannot sleep
and you say life is like that
a flea
remember
you think of time as a growing child
a man,
a wild man running and chasing
virgins that must make most of their time
because
time is a-flying and
the rose that blooms today
tomorrow
may be dying
remember time in a bottle
remember life like a fruit fly trapped
trying to figure
out how to escape
and you say life is like that
a fruit fly
remember death
like a woman sleeping in her chambers
closing the curtains
and you say
death is like that
a mere closing of a curtain
just like that
remember how
loneliness is like a steel tunnel
you get in there,
some birds hover and fly away from you
you get in there,
and there seems to be no light visible
at the end
loneliness
life is like that
you see
metaphors and dissect every vein
every artery
every bone and
cartilage of
these metaphors that you
say do not exist
in prose
, , , , , , , , , , , that you say do not exist in my prose
mine is not poetry
mine is a poverty of poetry
and you claim
yours is the basket the cornocupia of true poetry
good for you, you are the prima donna
of this
dance
this quibble in poetry
it does not matter
give me some metaphors
about poverty, discrimination, meaninglessness,
purposelessness,
non-being, the metaphysics of early death
a being-in-distress
an addict
a streetchild
a battered wife
a cruel father
a hypocirte priest
an embittered professor
a disgruntled student
give me some metaphors about
corruption, lying presidents, secret killings
you are the master of metaphor
you are the queen of slave
metaphors
so be it.
make me a poem to the strictures of metaphor
give poems a strange face
a hybrid of dog and man
make them read and not understand
delude them
give them illusions
confusions
make them baffled, submissive, uncritical, uncomplaining
complacent,
bewilder them to your secret,
derivative and too personalized
metaphors
and you are happy
they do not understand a thing
and they will believe that you are God.
for those that we do not understand
we call it mystery
we call it metaphor
we call it
unquestionable.
let the oppression stay.
let the discrimination live in the metaphors that
you have made.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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What is Poverty?
What does poverty really entail?
How bad does it have to get?
For some a bad economy
Is poverty from where they sit
But if you look back to hard times
During the early years
It’s not having a home to live in
The hopelessness can bring tears
The Great Depression had it all
No jobs and no place to dwell
Barely enough to eat or nothing at all
These folks went through hell
Thread bare was the term for clothing
Dirt poor was a phrase as well
Looking at black and white pictures
Oh yes, you can surely tell
It’s a time when we hope God
Is able to see
That folks need His help because
They have slipped into poverty!
poem by Marilyn Lott
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If The Poems Keep Flowing
IF THE POEMS KEEP FLOWING
If the poems keep flowing
And the metaphors ripen on the trees
And the dreams say words even they do not understand
And all life in sound becomes a magical prescence of music
If all good things come in this process of writing
And my silence is forever stricken from the record of Time
Then why and how and where and must will I become again
Carry me along taddy like you done at the toy fair?
So after all the years of reading
Lost too in the flow of the words of others
Unable to hear myself without hearing them
Because all other poets are the poet I am and would be
And all I take in me slowly memorizing line by line phrase by phrase word by word
Is a kind of blessing
Which even this hushed hearing now cannot really explain
Or take away on the river of lost light forever
Shabbat Shalom.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Is letting go a metaphor?
what is letting go -
letting go of grief?
the serenity of letting go?
(must be a bad metaphor)
losing represents letting go of control
I need to understand this 'letting go'
is it a metaphor for facing the inevitable?
breathing as a metaphor for living
'the practice of pruning wine vines'
is that a metaphor for letting go?
surrender. reaching towards the future
if you'll excuse another bad metaphor...
'the last of the sand is pouring...'
onion metaphors are stripped down to the core
letting go is a metaphor for acceptance
is acceptance a metaphor for failure?
'The freedom of letting go'
that does sound grand
letting go is not for the faint-hearted
my hands and heart are tired from letting go
so many times over
examine why metaphor is not
a substitute for the literal
letting go is
a metaphor
for goodbye
110709
poem by Terri Turrell
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A Poet's Rant
Each page, A blank canvas
The pen, The linking brush
My hand and arm, The creators
My mind, The imaginative dreamer
The issue is the bringing about of a colorful picture
Due to my chosen art my stroking motions of pen mean nothing in poetry
The story and language of my broken thoughts
Are to converge and stick to make one solitary piece
The issue is they never stay constant or stick
Always changing by the hour of thought and emotion
The thoughts of an elusive rhyme scheme never fulfilled
So I’ll try to do the best I can with increasing practice
Practice in reading a Thesaurus perhaps?
Although for now I shall try to write elegant whimsical words
That the world seems to have forgotten n’less it is heard in a work of Shakespeare
Or in a Medieval movie
Similar to a conjured phrase such as,
My aforethought words drip from a scaly desert of a tongue of whose reading can be found in the unlockable cave known to that of this poet.
Despite its attractiveness to the eyes of a skimmer or wandering reader
Some may appreciate the sentimental phrase I made
poem by Ryan Collins
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After people have repeated a phrase a great number of times, they begin to realize it has meaning and may even be true.
quote by H.G. Wells
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love.
Milan Kundera in The Unbearable Lightness of Being
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The permissive society has been allowed to become a dirty phrase. A better phrase is the civilised society.
quote by Roy Jenkins
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The Poem Is A Metaphor
THE POEM IS A METAPHOR
The Poem is a Metaphor
It means ‘the world’
It means ‘all that there is’
It means ‘the soul’
It means ‘our deepest feeling’.
The Poem is a Metaphor
It is more than what it just appears to be
It takes on a life of its own
It says more than it can define itself as
The Poem is a Metaphor
And it itself does not understand
Where it began and how it will end
And whether or not
It should always be rewritten.
The Poem is a Metaphor
And we too are metaphors
That will vanish one day
When all the real Poems
Pretend to still be here.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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It's no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an airport' appear.
quote by Douglas Adams
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My least favorite phrase in the English language is ""I don't care.""
quote by James Caan
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When I am seriously composing, sometimes a phrase will come into my head, a catch phrase. When I was writing pop songs for a few years, as a career, separate from my folksinging career, I used to write songs for pop singers.
quote by Tom Glazer
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Beauty
I could say she’s very lovely
Her complexion as smooth as silk
There’s no doubt in its verity
but she’s of a different ilk.
No words can express her beauty
To try would be a futile whim
The words would be a blaspheme-
To parrot them would be a sin.
Frenchmen would say vous êtes beau
A hackneyed phrase she heard before;
Italians, siete bello
Same old phrase from a different shore.
The fact is, her” beauty is truth”-
An ephemeral time of youth.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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When I was a young man, I was a baritone, very far from possessing the whole range of the tenor then.
quote by Placido Domingo
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