|
|
|
More "Manner of speaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that children's impressions are not durable. That's true enough. But here, child is only a manner of speaking. The girl was within a few days of her sixteenth birthday; she was old enough to be matured by the shock. The very effort she had to make in conveying the impression to Mrs Fyne, in remembering the details, in finding adequate words—or any words at all—was ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... me into this honorable company;" answered the Herr Mueller, whom no kindness of tone, however, could win from his timid and subdued manner of speaking. ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... off this. I didn't ought to swear away this man's life. He and I are, in a manner of speaking, brothers. ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... in a reverie. He did not take a chair, and she also remained standing. Resting upon his stick, he began: "Mrs. Charmond, I have called upon a more serious matter—at least to me—than tree-throwing. And whatever mistakes I make in my manner of speaking upon it to you, madam, do me the justice to set 'em down to my want of practice, and not to my ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... on looking into books or newspapers, he frequently asked the meaning of the most common word. He spoke his own language with a rapidity that at first made it difficult to follow him; and it was several days before I got so far accustomed to his manner of speaking, as to ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... in which the Ram was situated in the time of Hipparchus, is found to correspond with that part of the heavens in which the Bull was situated; and the Twins are placed where the Bull then stood. All the signs have changed their situation, and yet we still retain the same manner of speaking as the ancients did. In this age we say that the sun is in the Ram in the spring, from the same principle of condescension that we say that the sun ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... again, that those peculiarities of his mental attitude are evidenced informally; by a tendency, as we said, by the mere general tone in which he speaks of Beauty, for instance, "as it really is," of all that "really is," under its various forms; a manner of speaking, not explicit, but veiled, in various degrees, under figures, as at the end of the sixth book of The Republic, or under mythological fantasies, like those of the Phaedrus. He seems to have no inclination for the responsibilities of definite theory; ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... out. The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley; and his voice and greeting were as opposite as his aspect. He had a sweet, low manner of speaking, and pronounced his words as you do: that's less gruff than ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... hand, and she sat forward, with her arms along her knees. Her eyes were troubled; but she did not lose her calm manner of speaking. "I'm sorry, Maurice, very sorry—you believe me' don't you, when I say so? But believe me, too, it's not so serious as you think. You are young. You will get over it, and forget—if not soon, at least in time. You must forget me, and some day you will meet the nice, good woman, who is ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... should think alike on subjects of religion. Let us take things as the sons of men have always found them, and not presume to oppugn Providence, who has decreed that there shall be, every where, men of different colours, countenances, voices, manner of speaking, of different feelings and views of things, and also of different languages and of different opinions, as it regards the Deity, and his government of the world; and that among this great and doubtless necessary diversity of the views of him, we may have the most pure and rational system of any. ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... the notary shuddered still more convulsively, but he composed himself again. A man less simple than the abbe would have remarked, during this conversation, and, above all, during what is about to follow, the notary's constrained manner of speaking; for it is hardly necessary to say that a will superior to his own, the will of Rudolph, in a word, imposed on this man words and acts diametrically opposed to his true character. Thus sometimes, pushed to extremities, the notary appeared reluctant ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... a charm in the exaggerated, honeyed modulation of the syllables. It was, of course, only a bad, underbred habit that showed bad education and a false idea of good manners. And yet this intonation and manner of speaking impressed Alyosha as almost incredibly incongruous with the childishly simple and happy expression of her face, the soft, babyish joy in her eyes. Katerina Ivanovna at once made her sit down in an arm-chair ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... that we must take up house with the Hansons. Mrs. Hanson had been, from the first, flustered, subdued, and a little pale; but from this proposition she recoiled with haggard indignation. So did we, who would have preferred, in a manner of speaking, death. But Kelmar was not to be put by. He edged Mrs. Hanson into a corner, where for a long time he threatened her with his forefinger, like a character in Dickens; and the poor woman, driven to her entrenchments, at last remembered ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in QUEER STREET, ma'am, haw, haw! Mulligan, you divvle (in an Irish accent), a glass of wine with you. Wine, here, you waiter! What's your name, you black nigger? 'Possum up a gum-tree, eh? Fill him up. Dere he go" (imitating the Mandingo manner of speaking English) ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... maintained by any one in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself; then I shall be satisfied, and you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve ...
— The Republic • Plato
... His manner of speaking was a quiet announcement to Hunt that his plans were for the present a closed subject. Hunt felt balked, for this lean, alert, much-talked-of adventurer piqued him greatly; but he switched to other subjects, and during the ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... same manner; that is, merely as opinion without data. "The progress," says Smith, "of the enormous debts, which at present oppress, and will in the long run most probably ruin, all the great nations of Europe [he should have said governments] has been pretty uniform." But this general manner of speaking, though it might make some impression, carried ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Helen had no means of knowing, since she had never seen Mr. Kane in his brief moment of hope when he and Althea had been centre and everybody else outskirts. She had found him, during her few conversations with him, so tamely funny as to be hardly odd, though his manner of speaking and the way in which his hair was cut struck her as expressing oddity to an unfortunate degree; but though only dimly aware of him, and aware mainly in this sense of amusement, she had, since Althea had informed her of his status, seen him with some compassionateness. It didn't make ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... they could not resist it. Such were the definitions of "returning loyalty" I received from the mouths of a large number of individuals intelligent enough to appreciate the meaning of the expressions they used. I found a great many whose manner of speaking showed that they did not understand the circumstances under which they lived, and had no settled opinions at all except on matters immediately touching ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... brimstone yellow sheets, worn like Roman togas. A nearer view displays bridgeless, patulous noses, suggesting a figure of [Symbol: Figure-8 on its side.]; cheek-bones like molehills, and lips splayed out in the manner of speaking-trumpets: often, indeed, the face is a mere attachment to the devouring-apparatus. Throughout the day sexes and ages keep apart. The nude boys perch upon stones or worn-out canoes. Their elders affect the shade, men on one side ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... His feelings having been roused, his tongue was loosed, and forthwith he enjoyed a delightful conversation with the intelligent child; not that there was any remarkable change as to the matter of what was spoken, but there was a vast change in the manner of speaking it. ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... only to model his articulation on his brother's slower manner of speaking as distinguished from his own, to be his brother himself. In saying those few first words, he did it so dexterously that I could have sworn—if I had not seen him standing before me—Oscar was in ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... is of more importance, and is so in more ways, than is commonly supposed. A place hard to speak in is apt to create, especially in the young preacher just forming his habits, a hard and unnatural manner of speaking. More than one young preacher have I known, who began with good natural tones, in the course of a [77] year or two, to fall into a loud, pulpit monotone, or to bring out all his cadences with a jerk, or with a disagreeable stress ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... him with wondering eyes as if they doubted his sanity, a notion quite pardonable from his manner of speaking and the wild look he had given himself by thrusting both his hands through his rather long, shaggy black hair, and making it ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... eleven o'clock. The doctor sat at a tall old "secretary" between his windows, swinging round with expectancy as his friend entered. There were still people of a sort, human beings in a manner of speaking, in the waiting-room; but he let them wait now, that being what the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... was not badly dressed. On my asking him how tall he was, and how old, he said that he was six foot high, all but an inch, and that he was ninety-two years old. He could not talk much Gypsy, but understood almost all that I said to him. Our discourse was chiefly in English. One thing only in his manner of speaking I thought worthy of remembrance. Instead of saying Romany, like other Gypsies, he said Roumany, a word which instantly brought to my mind Roumain, the genuine, ancient name of the Wallachian tongue and people. He seemed to be rather ashamed of being of Gypsy blood. He told ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... This manner of speaking was new, and did not comport with the state or fortunes of ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... he thought suddenly, "I might have been the chosen instrument of Providence. This is a manner of speaking, but there may be truth in every manner of speaking. What if that absurd saying were true ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... further procrastination was rendered impossible. Mrs. Tidditt, the judge's housekeeper, visited the General Minot place with another message from her employer. Emmeline was gray-haired, brisk and, as Judah expressed it, "straight up and down," both in figure and manner of speaking. ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... "It's her manner of speaking of spookish things, Mr. Singleton. It doesn't seem fitting in a widow and her so lately bereaved. And the older lady's quite as bad, sir. The maids tell me they keep talking all day about fairies and pretending ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... so satisfied them, that they satisfied others; was brought at his suit to the bar of the House of Commons on on the 4th of July 1643, where being a man in truth very powerful in language, and who, by what he spoke, and the manner of speaking it, exceedingly captivated the good will, and benevolence of his hearers, with such flattery, as was most exactly calculated to that meridian, with such a submission as their pride took delight in, and such a dejection of mind and spirit, as was like ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... by the apprehension of censure or reproach. I will march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me. Philosophy will put you upon nothing but what your nature wishes and calls for." [Footnote: Book V.] Of this preaching Bishop Butler says that it is "a manner of speaking, not loose and indeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true." [Footnote: Preface to Sermons.] In modern times this doctrine has taken the form of exhortation to take our place in the evolutionary process. It is thought by some ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... an immense amount of practice, just as the hearing child requires a great deal of practice for years before he can understand what people are saying to him. If you speak to him in a different way from that employed when speaking to others he will learn to understand that, but not your ordinary manner of speaking. He will also imitate it himself. The Chinaman speaks and understands only "Pidgin" English because only "Pidgin" English has been used in communicating with him. If people had spoken to the Chinaman as they do to other people he would have ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... their worship. Agreeably to the account which has been above given, we find, that the Heroum of Cadmus at Sparta was built by Europus, and his brethren: and they likewise are represented as the sons of [1224]Uraeus. As we are acquainted with the eastern manner of speaking; and know that by the daughter of Tyre, the daughter of Jerusalem, the children of Moab, the children of Kedar, the children of Seir, the children of the east, are meant the inhabitants of those places: may we ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... Such was her manner of speaking when there was something she wanted to conceal but not to deny. The question must have been embarrassing therefore. Moreover, these interrogatories were based on a good store of facts either true or false; ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... dear good mother knew Philiper's ways So—well, she managed the money to raise; And old Flash himself Was "laid on the shelf," (In the manner of speaking we have nowadays). For "gracious knows, her darling child, If he went without money he'd soon grow wild." So Philiper Flash With a regular dash "Swung on to the reins," and went "slingin' ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... best he could to keep up appearances and help the tradition of domestic happiness along. The Moonstone gossips, assembled in Mrs. Smiley's millinery and notion store, often discussed Dr. Archie's politeness to his wife, and his pleasant manner of speaking about her. "Nobody has ever got a thing out of him yet," they agreed. And it was certainly not because no one had ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... Mr. Short. His wife, a thin, gray-haired woman, who wore spectacles and had a timid manner of speaking, was less of a person than the blacksmith. Sol Short, she found out later, had never been fifty miles from Grosvenor Flat in his life, but he had the poise, the self-contained air of a man who had acquired all needed ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... in a manner of speaking, we aren't. When we want to come into Bombay here we sail under King George's flag, and when we're in company with the pirates we fly theirs. Any way, we've taken two Dutch ships and an English one since we got out here, and that's put money in our pockets, which ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... those who never knew Landor, and the habitual limitless exaggeration of his manner of speaking, it may be necessary to observe that he did not really hold any opinion so monstrous as might be supposed from the passage in the text. And a letter given by Mr. Forster expresses earnestly and vigorously enough his high admiration for Miss Barrett's ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... know! His name is unknown to me, but I could tell he was English from his manner of speaking. The Colonel had an English friend who spoke so—one engaged ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... manner, he says, was wretched, and his physiognomy worse than Wilkes's. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 268) says that 'Cullen possessed the talent of mimicry beyond all mankind; for his was not merely an exact imitation of voice and manner of speaking, but a perfect exhibition of every man's manner of thinking on every subject.' Carlyle mentions two striking instances ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... and the Scythians reckon those who have gold in their own skulls to be the happiest and bravest of men (that is only another instance of your manner of speaking about the dog and father), and what is still more extraordinary, they drink out of their own skulls gilt, and see the inside of them, and hold their own head ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... Chinese Hottentots." Further observations have confirmed me in the very striking degree of resemblance between them. Their physical characters agree in almost every point. The form of their persons in the remarkable smallness of the joints and the extremities, their voices and manner of speaking, their temper, their colour and features, and particularly that singular shaped eye rounded in the corner next the nose like the end of an ellipsis, probably of Tartar or Scythian origin, are nearly alike. They also agree in the broad root of the nose; or great distance between ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... expression of anger smoothing away. "Yes, of course, this is, in a manner of speaking, a truly historic occasion. We are in a ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... to take his words seriously. He seemed to her a light-headed individual given to hasty judgments. That promise of notices and articles in the papers and his extravagant praises of her talent seemed to her merely insincere twaddle. Even his face, gestures, and manner of speaking reminded her of a certain notorious braggart living ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... intervals, should be sparingly indulged in; but you are at it all the time. There is a Chinese proverb which says, "If you can't smile don't open a shop;" and, after all, St. Paul's Cathedral is in a manner of speaking a kind of shop, isn't it?—the goods, at any rate, should be obtainable there. The phrase "there is no health in us" does not constitute the whole liturgy. Down with facile optimists by all means, but, my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... In returning her answers, the very expression of her countenance, though one of the plainest among them, was almost of itself sufficient to convey her meaning; and there was in these cases a peculiar decisive energy in her manner of speaking, which was extremely interesting. This woman would indeed have easily learned anything to which she chose to direct her attention; and had her lot been cast in a civilised country instead of this dreary region, which serves alike to “freeze ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... fume, began to cry out that never prince was handled as she was. "I have," said she, "borne with you in all your rigorous manner of speaking, both against myself and against my uncles; yea, I have sought your favors by all possible means. I offered unto you presence and audience, whensoever it pleased you to admonish me, and yet I cannot ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... as distinctly individual as his manner of speaking. It is not deep nor very full, but, considering his great age, it is wonderfully clear and ringing, and it has a certain incisiveness of sound which gives it great carrying power. Pius the Ninth had as beautiful a voice, both in compass ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... a yarn," exclaimed the other in unfeigned astonishment. "Married! And you a professed anarchist, too! What is this confounded nonsense? But I suppose it's merely a manner of speaking. Anarchists don't marry. It's well known. They can't. It would ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... did not make the soul after the body, although we are speaking of them in this order; for having brought them together he would never have allowed that the elder should be ruled by the younger; but this is a random manner of speaking which we have, because somehow we ourselves too are very much under the dominion of chance. Whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to and older than the body, to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the body was to be the subject. ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... doctor, "once for all I protest against that despondent manner of speaking. 'My poor father!' How do you know he is poor? Bah! lad: you're a bit down, and I shall give you a little quinine. To-morrow ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... short remark to her husband in the evening: "I have been thinking of the text, 'Then whose shall these things be which thou hast provided?' they may not be mine much longer." This was touching to his feelings, but was viewed as her wonted cautious manner of speaking of temporal things. There was nothing further in her remarks which showed that she regarded her ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... word have generally a much worse result than is obtained by leaving the child to himself. The correct, or at any rate the best, repetitions were those made when the child was not spoken to. Even adults can imitate others in their manner of speaking, their dialect, even their voice, much better when not called upon to do it, but left entirely to their own inclination. The wish or command of others generates an embarrassment which disturbs the course of the motor processes. I resolved, consequently, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... and truly, as before God, I must say, that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness of his observation, the solidity of his understanding, filled me with astonishment. His manner of speaking to me inspired me with love for him. It was one of the most remarkable days of my life. By his genius and his disinterested goodness ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... There's precious little one can find to say against the Government, which was the main of our talk at home, and them that do say things are not the sort o' people a man who respects himself would like to be mixed up with. There are no politics, in a manner of speaking, in ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... expressing malignity to persons. I am young; and may occasionally write with the intemperance of a young man's zeal. Let me borrow an apology from the great and excellent Dr. Hartley, who of all men least needed it. "I can truly say, that my free and unreserved manner of speaking has flowed from the sincerity and earnestness of my heart." But I will not undertake to justify all that I have said. Some things may be too hasty and censorious; or however, be unbecoming my age and station. I heartily wish that I could ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... before, in Roland's opinion, his little army was properly supplied with ammunition. True, they had the first act, but even the authors agreed that it wanted bringing up-to-date in parts. They explained that it was, in a manner of speaking, their life-work, that they had actually started it about ten years ago when they were careless lads. Inevitably, it was spotted here and there with smart topical hits of the early years of the century; but that, they said, ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... me a week to decide," said Hetty, in a hurried manner of speaking. "I—I took but twenty-four hours—less than that. Over night, you remember. I love you, Sara. I could not leave you. All that night I could feel you pulling at my heart-strings, pulling me closer ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... a rich old bool, both from his manner of speaking, and the rewards he seemed to offer for the apprehension of his daughter; but to be sure, when so many of us were present that had an equal right to the spuilzie, it would not be a great deal a thousand pounds, when divided, still it was worth the looking after; so ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... question, sir?" Carthew suggested. "Having regard to all the circumstances—I say having regard as it were to all the circumstances, in a manner of speaking, what should you have ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... Authors. A Man who has any Relish for fine Writing, either discovers new Beauties, or receives stronger Impressions from the Masterly Strokes of a great Author every time he peruses him; Besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of Speaking and Thinking. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... said, "you had known him, and that I might have got you both together. You remind me of him, not only in looks, but by your manner of speaking." ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... after dinner as well. It would take a good deal to stir him from his cool manner of speaking; but his face ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... being come down, the Governor told him that "he need fear nothing, but might speak freely," answered smartly, "I always speak freely, what should I fear? I am now among friends, and I never feared even among my enemies." Another instance of their short manner of speaking was when I ordered one of the Carolina boatmen, who was drunk and had beaten an Indian, to be tied to a gun till he was sober, in order to be whipped. Tomo Chichi came to me to beg me to pardon him, which I refused to do unless the Indian who had been beaten should ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... to let his manner of speaking pass, we will consider what he would or could have said. There is no difference which can here be imagined except this: That the individual action of hearing the word (when one heareth aright) is good and remunerable in a double respect, ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... of this journey shews, moreover, that Louisiana maintains its good qualities throughout; and that the natives of North America derive their origin from the same country, since at bottom they all have the same manners and usages, as also the same manner of speaking and thinking. ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... islands in the neighbourhood of Annamooka; and an old lame man named Tepa, whom I had known in 1777 and immediately recollected, came on board. Two other chiefs whose names were Noocaboo and Kunocappo were with him. Tepa having formerly been accustomed to our manner of speaking their language I found I could converse with him tolerably well. He informed me that Poulaho, Feenow, and Tubow, were alive and at Tongataboo, and that they would come hither as soon as they heard of our arrival, of which he promised to send them immediate ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... that in Knolles' cold gray eyes and in his manner of speaking those last words which sent the portly envoy back at a quicker gait than he had come. As he vanished into the gloomy arch of the gateway the drawbridge swung up with creak ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the airy breadths of a vivid echo of past daring. "From the way you act a person might think you were pretty, but you are too thin and pulled out. I've heard your looks called peculiar, and that was, in a manner of speaking, polite. You're not even stylish any more—the line is full again and not suitable for bony shoulders and no bust." She still cherished a complacency ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... system unjustly: it is the manner of speaking to which it attends. The precaution of speaking so as to produce good, not bad, consequences is the doctrine I wish to inculcate. He that should sweep the streets of pea-shells, lest old women might break their necks, would doubtless have good intentions; yet his ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Gr. [Greek: dialektos], conversation, manner of speaking, [Greek: dialegesthai], to converse), a particular or characteristic manner of speech, and hence any variety of a language. In its widest sense languages which are branches of a common or parent language may be said to be "dialects" of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... there anything the matter with you?" inquired Mrs. Mudge, her curiosity excited by his manner of speaking. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... stonily, 'we may 'ave somethink to say to 'im, as it were, by-and-by') and had culled some of them—even as one picks the unresisting primrose, others not without recourse to persuasion. 'Many of 'em,' the Superintendent explained, 'showed a liveliness you wouldn't believe. It was, in a manner of speaking, beyond anythink y'r Worships would expect.' He paused a moment, cleared his throat, and achieved this really fine phrase: 'It was, for their united ages, in a manner of ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... at her strong family likeness to her father—a likeness which had grown upon her as she had become older, and which extended even to voice and manner of speaking. He remembered how he had heard me describe the game of chess I had played with the doctor in days gone by, and with his mind's ear seemed to hear Miss Skinner saying, as though it were ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... instinct, and it has not obtained it on the side of intelligence except by a sudden leap from the animal to man. So that, in the last analysis, man might be considered the reason for the existence of the entire organization of life on our planet. But this would be only a manner of speaking. There is, in reality, only a current of existence and the opposing current; thence proceeds the whole evolution of life. We must now grasp more closely the opposition of these two currents. Perhaps we shall thus discover for them a common source. By this ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... after Betsy's birthday, one October day when the leaves were all red and yellow, two very momentous events occurred, and, in a manner of speaking, at the very same time. Betsy had noticed that her kitten Eleanor (she still thought of her as a kitten, although she was now a big, grown-up cat) spent very little time around the house. She came into the kitchen two or three times a day, mewing ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... red, for he never had come in contact in this way with O'Brien. All the other officers had submitted quietly to his unpleasant manner of speaking to them. "Very well, Mr O'Brien; I shall hold you answerable for this language," replied he, "and shall most certainly report your ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... her, ''im and me we understands each other. 'Im and me,' I says, 'is old friends. 'E's me dear old pal, Corporal Banks, of the Skrimshankers.' She grinned at that, ma'am, Corporal Banks being a man we'd 'ad many a 'earty laugh at in the old days. 'E was, in a manner of speaking, ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... been mimicking Hume: I told the women, who, besides the mistress, were the Duchess de la Vali'ere,(888) Madame de Forcalquier,(889) a demoiselle, that to be sure they would be glad to have a specimen of Mr. Pitt's manner of speaking; and that nobody mimicked him so well as Elliot.(890) They firmly believed it, teased him for an hour, and at last said he was the rudest man in the world not to oblige them. It appeared the more strange, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... return, they were, naturally enough, talking of the matter, regarding it as a cause of deep thankfulness that no harm had befallen her. Mr. G., one of the number, although a very kind hearted man, had an odd dry manner of speaking which often provoked a laugh. It so happened that the woman who was lost was very small, her stature being much below the medium height. Laughter was far enough from the mind of any one, till old Mr. G., who had not before made a remark, suddenly said, "sic a wee body as you ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... comedians who, when they have just appeared in a mournful character, often make their exit with tears in their eyes. If, then, the expression given to imaginary passions can affect so powerfully, what should not orators do, whose inner feelings ought to sympathize with their manner of speaking, which can not happen unless they are truly affected by the danger to which their clients ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... to my apron-string; he will tell you nothing of the kind; but that, on the contrary, I always allows him an agreeable latitude, permitting him to go where he pleases, and to converse with any one to whose manner of speaking he may take a fancy. But I have had the advantage of keeping good company, and ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Xenophon; and the captains, on hearing his observations, all desired him to be their leader, except a certain Apollonides, who resembled a Boeotian in his manner of speaking; this man said that "whoever asserted they could gain safety by any other means than by obtaining, if he could, the king's consent to it, talked absurdly;" and at the same time began to enumerate the difficulties ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... She simply could not help it. Wee Tu's greeting seemed so absurd to her ears, though she knew it was the Chinese manner of speaking. But Bab's merry laugh saved the situation, as it often had done before, for the little Chinese maid laughed in return, and the five girls sat giggling in the ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... ripping up the Bee, a proceeding which would damage the game when it is hunted on behalf of the larvae, without resorting to the murderous extirpation of the crop. She must, by able handling, by skilful pressure, make the Bee disgorge, she must milk her, in a manner of speaking. Suppose the Bee stung behind the corselet and paralysed. That deprives her of her power of locomotion, but not of her vitality. The digestive organs in particular retain or very nearly retain their normal energy, as is proved by the frequent excretions that take place in the paralysed prey, so ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... the best stuff," is Mr. W. L. George's method of acquiring literary taste. Something can be said for the method, and Mr. George says it well, and we are sorry, in a manner of speaking, not to believe a word of it; unless, as is possible, we both believe the same thing fundamentally. Taste, in literature and music, and in other things, is, we are quite sure, natural. It can be trained, ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... demand more than a few lines in the ordinary printed leaves,' replied the other calmly. 'Indeed, in a manner of speaking, it is entirely a detail of no consequence whether or not the sublime Lo Kuan ever existed. In reality his very commonplace name may have been simply Lung; his inspired work may have been written a score of dynasties before him by some other person, or they may have been composed ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... heightened, but she had grown accustomed to her lodger's abrupt manner of speaking, so she took no notice of his remark, and ...
— The Boy Artist. - A Tale for the Young • F.M. S.
... large diamond breastpin (a real diamond, of that superlative style only seen in its perfection on the shirt fronts of aldermen, contractors, and Washington Market butchers), and the native New York manner of speaking, which is sharp and mandatory. The coroner began life as a stone mason, gained early distinction as a fireman, controlled several hundred votes in his ward, became a member of a political committee, and got a coronership as his share of the spoils. He had aspired to be a ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... "Your affectionate manner of speaking of your relatives is only surpassed by your good taste in describing the probabilities of my ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... and then remained silent. As for Max, he was struck with an odd likeness between the girl's dry, short manner of speaking to Dudley and Dudley's manner of speaking ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... 'a homely barley driller, born under the eaves of your ladyship's outbuildings, in a manner of speaking,—though your ladyship was neither born ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... God, in a manner of speaking, that I didn't, for she never pulled it off. I owe that to Mr. Pilcher. No, I never touched a thing till the ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... his own slow, accented manner of speaking was so perfect. Only for an instant; then he ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... part of his countenance. His health and spirits, judging from appearances, were excellent; though, at this period, it was generally believed in England that he was fast sinking under a complication of diseases, and that his spirits were entirely gone. His manner of speaking was rather slow than otherwise, and perfectly distinct: and he waited with great patience and kindness for my answers to his questions. The brilliant and sometimes dazzling expression of his eye could not be overlooked. It was not, however, a permanent lustre, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... serve when I will do it, and I am bound to do it. I offered to proceed to examine and prove what I said if they please, but Mr. Coventry most discreetly advised not, it being to no purpose, and that he did believe that what I said did not by my manner of speaking it proceed from any design of reproaching them, and so it ended. But my great trouble is for poor Deane. At noon home and dined with my wife, and after dinner Will told me if I pleased he was ready to remove his things, and so before ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... to a furrow on any part of his countenance. His health and spirits, judging from appearances, were excellent; though, at this period, it was generally believed in England that he was fast sinking under a complication of diseases, and that his spirits were entirely gone. His manner of speaking was rather slow than otherwise, and perfectly distinct: and he waited with great patience and kindness for my answers to his questions. The brilliant and sometimes dazzling expression of his eye could not be overlooked. It was not, however, a permanent lustre, for it was only remarkable when he ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... newcomer. They shook hands, Jimmy with something of the wariness of a boxer in the ring. He felt an instinctive distrust of this man. Why, he could not have said. Perhaps it was a certain subtle familiarity in his manner of speaking to Molly that annoyed him. Jimmy objected strongly to any one addressing her as if there existed between them some secret understanding. Already the mood of the old New York days was strong upon him. His instinct then had been to hate ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... birthday, one October day when the leaves were all red and yellow, two very momentous events occurred, and, in a manner of speaking, at the very same time. Betsy had noticed that her kitten Eleanor (she still thought of her as a kitten, although she was now a big, grown-up cat) spent very little time around the house. She came into the kitchen two or three times a day, mewing loudly for milk and food, but after eating ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... And in a manner of speaking he vanished. Of course I couldn't see him but somehow that was the impression. I had hardly time to receive it when crash! . . . he was already at the other door. I suppose he thought that his prey was escaping him. His swiftness was amazing, almost inconceivable, more like the effect of a trick ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... a little time, "I fear you are concealing the state of your own health; I am sure, from your flushed face and oppressive manner of speaking, that you are worse than you ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... who has an encouraging countenance, can easily draw out the abilities of young people, and from their manner of listening, as well as from their manner of speaking, can soon form a judgment of ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... very well satisfied with his manner of speaking, and felt certain that we should be kindly treated. Fortunately for us, our mules had managed to get out of the way of the troops as they passed by. With much sagacity they had, when we jumped off their backs, crept ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Gloomy-deaniness, though salutary for brief intervals, should be sparingly indulged in; but you are at it all the time. There is a Chinese proverb which says, "If you can't smile don't open a shop;" and, after all, St. Paul's Cathedral is in a manner of speaking a kind of shop, isn't it?—the goods, at any rate, should be obtainable there. The phrase "there is no health in us" does not constitute the whole liturgy. Down with facile optimists by all means, but, my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... upon her, which Knox admitted had offended both Papists and Protestants, and he was again summoned to Holyrood. As soon as Mary saw Knox she was greatly excited, and exclaimed: "Never was prince handled as I am." "I have borne with you," she said to Knox, "in all your vigorous manner of speaking, both against myself and my uncles; yea, I have sought your favour by all possible means—I offered unto you presence and audience whenever it pleased you to admonish me, and yet I cannot be quit of you. I vow to God I ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... will take you to two very clever men; but, first, I must tell you not to be surprised at their manner of speaking. They have contracted at the bar a certain habit of declaiming which looks like singing, and you would think all they tell you is nothing ...
— Monsieur de Pourceaugnac • Moliere
... will march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me. Philosophy will put you upon nothing but what your nature wishes and calls for." [Footnote: Book V.] Of this preaching Bishop Butler says that it is "a manner of speaking, not loose and indeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true." [Footnote: Preface to Sermons.] In modern times this doctrine has taken the form of exhortation to take our place in the evolutionary process. It is thought by some that to ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... you, Mr. Le Noir, that your manner of speaking of my betrothal is equally insulting to myself, Doctor Rocke and my dear father, who never would have plighted our hands had he considered our prospective marriage ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... a question, sir?" Carthew suggested. "Having regard to all the circumstances—I say having regard as it were to all the circumstances, in a manner of speaking, what should you have done in ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... said, and stopped as if he were considering it. "Yes," he said quietly in the clean-cut, terse English manner of speaking, "I suppose I was the boy Donald Cochrane." He gazed across the white lilacs and pink roses on the table as if dreaming a bit. Then he turned with a long breath. "My child," he said, "there is something about you which gives me back ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Mrs. Mowbray's manner of speaking was essentially in keeping with her appearance. It may be called a fashion-plate style. It was both fluent and insincere. She spoke in what is sometimes called a "made voice"—that is to say, a voice not her own, made up for company—a florid falsetto: ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... at his wife's talkativeness, her one fault in her husband's eyes, if he thought she had a fault, he had a way of saying, "Alright, Sarah, Alright," as much as to say "that is final; you have said enough," in his peculiar, quick manner of speaking, which Aunt Sarah never resented, he being invariably kind and considerate ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... "There," John would add, "you can't touch pitch and not be mucked, lad. Here's this poor old innocent bird o' mine swearing blue fire, and none the wiser, you may lay to that. She would swear the same, in a manner of speaking, before chaplain." And John would touch his forelock with a solemn way he had, that made me think he was the best ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... know them when he saw them; nor did all the slaves of the out-farms know him. It is reported of him, that, while riding along the road one day, he met a colored man, and addressed him in the usual manner of speaking to colored people on the public highways of the south: "Well, boy, whom do you belong to?" "To Colonel Lloyd," replied the slave. "Well, does the colonel treat you well?" "No, sir," was the ready reply. "What, ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... perhaps that children's impressions are not durable. That's true enough. But here, child is only a manner of speaking. The girl was within a few days of her sixteenth birthday; she was old enough to be matured by the shock. The very effort she had to make in conveying the impression to Mrs Fyne, in remembering the details, in finding adequate words—or any words at all—was in itself a terribly ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... that Powell and Jones's works were close by in the High Street. She pointed out the way, but, failing to make Mr. Lennox understand her, she consented to go with him. He had a kind, soft manner of speaking which drew Kate towards him almost as if he had taken her in his arms, and it was astonishing how intimate they had grown ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... remarked the policeman, jerking his thumb over the Hollow, "this, in a manner of speaking, belongs to nobody. Some say it belongs to the Crown—I don't know. All I know is that nobody has any rights over it—it's been what you might term common land ever since anybody can remember. This ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... Martin, informing him of the sudden death of his mother. He said she had been complaining a few days, but they were not in the least alarmed till the day before her death, when Helen thought she perceived a change in her manner of speaking, and sent for Mr. Armstrong, who immediately saw she had had a stroke of the palsy. Nothing could be done; and before the next morning, another stroke carried her off. From the time she became seriously ill, she ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... books or newspapers, he frequently asked the meaning of the most common word. He spoke his own language with a rapidity that at first made it difficult to follow him; and it was several days before I got so far accustomed to his manner of speaking, as to comprehend his ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... and very ingenious: for, except Iron-work, all other things they have need of, they make and do themselves: insomuch that they all build their own houses. They are crafty and treacherous, not to be trusted upon any protestations: for their manner of speaking is very smooth and courteous, insomuch that they who are unacquainted with their dispositions and manners, may easily be deceived by them. For they make no account nor conscience of lying, neither is it any shame or disgrace ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... then remained silent. As for Max, he was struck with an odd likeness between the girl's dry, short manner of speaking to Dudley and Dudley's ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... eyes of the world, and that I was not alone in abhorring the cruelty and brutality of slavery. A still deeper train of thought was stirred. I saw that there was fear, as well as rage, in the manner of speaking of the abolitionists. The latter, therefore, I was compelled to regard as having some power in the country; and I felt that they might, possibly, succeed in their designs. When I met with a slave to whom I deemed it safe to talk ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... bearing of the old gentleman which he sought artificially to assume, so too his lack of repose and inward stability constantly contradicted it. He seemed merely to have borrowed the old gentleman's diplomatic manner of speaking in order to show his own superficiality and emptiness. Then at times he would suddenly lapse from the stiff demeanor of the wearer of the blue coat into his own patronizing joviality and onto a plane ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... said Guy; 'there was a reality in his manner of speaking that refuses to let me disbelieve him. Surely it cannot be one of the horrors of death that we should be left to reproach ourselves with the fancied sins we have been prone to, as well as with our real ones. Then'—and he rose, and walked about the room—'if so, more than ever, in ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him to-day, dated in Rome, in which he tells me that he will start immediately. He may be here to-morrow morning," I answered. Hedwig had regained her composure, perhaps because she was reassured by my manner of speaking about Nino. I, however, was anxious to hear from her own lips some confirmation of my suspicions concerning the baron. "I have no doubt," I continued presently, "that, with your consent, my boy will be able to deliver you from this prison—" I used ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... they were devils, perfect devils, all of them. But that is only a manner of speaking. I thought you meant that my servants here ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... with the dread of losing a single word: but however brief his expressions, the general's manner of speaking, notwithstanding the intensity of his emotion, was so distinct that every word was audible, except the name of Lord Beltravers, which was not familiar to her. She asked again the name of Mr. Beauclerc's second? "Lord Beltravers," the general repeated ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... formulated itself in 55 B.C. no classic has yet exactly informed us, but doubtless something like it was said in ancient Rome. Tembarom did not give himself away, and he took rapid, if uncertain, inventory of people and things. He remarked, for instance, that Palford's manner of speaking to a servant was totally different from the manner he used in addressing himself. It was courteous, but remote, as though he spoke across an accepted chasm to beings of another race. There was no hint of incivility in it, but also no hint of any possibility that it could occur to ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Haymoss; 'a homely barley driller, born under the eaves of your ladyship's outbuildings, in a manner of speaking,—though your ladyship was neither born nor 'tempted ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... therein, and not die with these imputations on you. Let not any devil persuade you to think there is no eternity in Heaven: for if you think thus, you shall find eternity in Hell-fire. In the first accusation of my lord Cobham, I observed his manner of speaking; I protest before the living God, I am persuaded he spoke nothing but the truth. You wrote, that he should not in any case confess any thing to a Preacher, telling him an example of my lord of Essex, that noble ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... and, in a manner of speaking, we aren't. When we want to come into Bombay here we sail under King George's flag, and when we're in company with the pirates we fly theirs. Any way, we've taken two Dutch ships and an English one since we got out here, and that's ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... device could render hybrids fertile. "They never establish an intermediate species." It is, therefore, to the doctrine of evolution his attention is principally directed. Nevertheless, he is no less struck by Darwin's way of excluding all intelligence and design in his manner of speaking of nature. On this point he quotes the language of Cuvier, who says: "Nature has been personified. Living beings have been called the works of nature. The general bearing of these creatures to each other has become the laws ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... touched by his kind manner of speaking that he could find no voice to answer him; and he had to brush away a tear or two with the back of his paw. But the Rat kindly looked in another direction, and presently the Mole's spirits revived again, and he was even able to give some straight back-talk to a ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... Clubs has held regular meetings during the sessions of the State Legislature, and it has been a regular custom to submit to that committee for approval all bills relating to women and children. This never seemed to the politicians to be anything very dangerous to their interests. It was, in a manner of speaking, a chivalric acknowledgment of women's virtue as ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... Mr. Otway. Your elegant manner of speaking shows clearly the refining influence of the charming people with whom you associate. Just let me tell you this—you looked like a gentleman a year or two ago, but become ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... as the man of the constant smile, and yet there is no one in history whose state papers contain passages of fiercer violence in days of tension. How much of his violence was genuine, how much was a manner of speaking, his biographers have not had the courage to determine. Like so many American biographers they have avoided the awkward questions and have glanced over, as lightly as possible, the persistent attempts of Congress ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... dear," she said slowly, "that is just what I am thinking of doing. Not 'neck and crop'—that's an exaggerated manner of speaking, but, during the last few days I have been coming to the conclusion that I made a mistake in separating you from your family. I thought too much of my own interests, and not enough of yours." She smiled, a strained, pathetic little ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... reverently. "But if your ladyship would give me a day's work to keep me goin', I could put up all this money in a little wooden savings bank I have at home, and keep it to spend when sickness or odd age shall, in a manner of speaking, lay their 'ends upon me. I could smooth that grass beautiful; them young ladies 'll strain themselves with that heavy roller. If tennis is the word, I can put up nets fit to catch birds of paradise in. If ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out. The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley; and his voice and greeting were as opposite as his aspect. He had a sweet, low manner of speaking, and pronounced his words as you do: that's less gruff than we talk ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... Vincy didn't half like the marriage, I know that," said Mr. Chichely. "He wouldn't do much. How the relations on the other side may have come down I can't say." There was an emphatic kind of reticence in Mr. Chichely's manner of speaking. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... a tone of solemnity that was a strong contrast to his usual easy, careless manner of speaking, "you ca'd me an honest man, an' ye think I'm clear o' guilt in this matter, but ye're mista'en. Hoo ye cam' to find oot a' this I canna divine, but I can tell ye somethin' mair than ye ken. ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sheriff: let me off this. I didn't ought to swear away this man's life. He and I are, in a manner of speaking, brothers. ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... had. He had his father's rather quick and stiff manner of speaking. He was fair-haired and complexioned, good-looking in a sharp-featured way, a juvenile edition of his father ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... day after that, however, further procrastination was rendered impossible. Mrs. Tidditt, the judge's housekeeper, visited the General Minot place with another message from her employer. Emmeline was gray-haired, brisk and, as Judah expressed it, "straight up and down," both in figure and manner of speaking. ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... positively unladylike in your manner of speaking of marriage and a future husband!" ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... I opine there's a draught out there. This baby is precious. We've all of us got stock in this baby in a manner of speaking. This is a little bit of universal brotherhood. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Bessie were used to Miss Trevor's odd ways and manner of speaking; but to Lena they were a novelty, as she had never seen her before, although she had heard of her from her aunt and from her schoolmates, who often made merry over the recollection of her peculiarities when she had been their teacher in writing ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... heard it roaring softly as he explained, described and dilated on the new thing; but a moment later it had fallen in and there was nothing but ashes, and Jonathan went about with a look like hunger in his black eyes. At these times he exaggerated his absurd manner of speaking, and he sang in church—he was the leader of the choir—with such fearful dramatic intensity that the meanest hymn put ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... or other, Leslie," he said. "We want somebody to take charge, somebody with a head, that's all. And since you ain't, in a manner of speaking, been one of us, nobody's feelings can't be ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... crept in a dislike to her home;—not to those who owned it, far from it. To her parents she was still loving and dutiful, but she began to conceive that her own attempts to improve her appearance, her manner of speaking, and her general carriage, were strangely at variance with her humble home and its belongings. Happily, those precepts most potent to restrain any waywardness or wickedness, had been early instilled ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... profession. "But Col. John Chelmsford hath no meaning to deal otherwise than fairly by the boy, and neither, unless I greatly mistake, hath his wife." And this he said as if both Colonel Chelmsford and my mother were at his elbow, and for that manner of speaking I have ever had contempt, preferring downright scurrility, and Captain Cavendish replied with his quick agility of wrath, as precipitate toward judgment as a sailor to the masthead in ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... attacking things without expressing malignity to persons. I am young; and may occasionally write with the intemperance of a young man's zeal. Let me borrow an apology from the great and excellent Dr. Hartley, who of all men least needed it. "I can truly say, that my free and unreserved manner of speaking has flowed from the sincerity and earnestness of my heart." But I will not undertake to justify all that I have said. Some things may be too hasty and censorious; or however, be unbecoming my age and station. I heartily wish ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... five stories in this volume, "The Lagoon," the last in order, is the earliest in date. It is the first short story I ever wrote and marks, in a manner of speaking, the end of my first phase, the Malayan phase with its special subject and its verbal suggestions. Conceived in the same mood which produced "Almayer's Folly" and "An Outcast of the Islands," it is told in the ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... "Your bones, in a manner of speaking," delicately conceded the doctor. "I had to make sure you had really died, and not disappeared ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... model his articulation on his brother's slower manner of speaking as distinguished from his own, to be his brother himself. In saying those few first words, he did it so dexterously that I could have sworn—if I had not seen him standing before me—Oscar ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... you'll excuse the liberty, I'll interdooce meself, in a manner of speaking." He touched his cap with a bob of mock humility. "I'm Bob Ford," he said, "come back out o' kingdom come so to say. Me as went down with the Mooltan—safe dead five year gone. I come to ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... "In a manner of speaking, your lordship, and for all practical purposes, yes. Mrs. Digby, the 'ouse-keeper conducted the actual negotiations in many cases, but the arrangement was in no instance considered complete until I ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... upon my staff and viewing her eye to eye, "'tis a matter of vital moment, aye—in a manner of speaking—'tis a matter of life and death betwixt us." Now as I stood thus I could not but be conscious of her glowing, vigorous beauty, her body's noble shape and the easy grace of her as she sat her fretting horse, swaying to his every movement. And to me, in my rags, she seemed no woman but a goddess ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... de Choiseul. Madame said, "She always says the right thing in the right place." Madame de Grammont was not so agreeable to them; and I think that this was to be attributed, in part, to the sound of her voice, and to her blunt manner of speaking; for she was said to be a woman of great sense, and devotedly attached to the King and Madame de Pompadour. Some people pretended that she tried to captivate the King, and to supplant Madame: nothing ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... would have asked for alms, promising to do any thing that might be wanted, in return merely for her board and lodging. But it was written that every thing should turn against her. Her beauty, her charms, her distinguished appearance, her very manner of speaking, were so many obstacles in her way. Who could think of engaging a girl as a servant, who looked like a duchess? So that all her prayers only met with cold faces, shrugging of shoulders, and ironical smiles. She was refused everywhere. It is true that ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... in their bright red and brimstone yellow sheets, worn like Roman togas. A nearer view displays bridgeless, patulous noses, suggesting a figure of [Symbol: Figure-8 on its side.]; cheek-bones like molehills, and lips splayed out in the manner of speaking-trumpets: often, indeed, the face is a mere attachment to the devouring-apparatus. Throughout the day sexes and ages keep apart. The nude boys perch upon stones or worn-out canoes. Their elders affect the shade, men on one side of the village ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... you divvle (in an Irish accent), a glass of wine with you. Wine, here, you waiter! What's your name, you black nigger? 'Possum up a gum-tree, eh? Fill him up. Dere he go" (imitating the Mandingo manner of speaking English) ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... convince him of his errour. Where the understanding is convinced, and the habit of opposition still continues, we should carefully avoid calling his false associations into action; we should not ask him to do any thing for which he has acquired an habitual aversion; we should alter our manner of speaking to him, that neither the tones of our voice, the words, or the looks, which have been his customary signals for resistance, may recall the same feelings to his mind: placed in new circumstances, he may acquire new habits, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... of conviction in Mrs. Brown's manner of speaking that grieved Ann Holland sorely. She accompanied her departing guest to the door, and long after she was out of sight stood looking vacantly down the darkened street. There was little light or sound there now, except in the Upton Arms, where the ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... all the English ladies have it till they marry; and she had on a necklace of exceeding fine jewels; her hands were small, her fingers long, and her stature neither small nor low; her air was stately, her manner of speaking mild and obliging. That day she was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of black silk, shot with silver threads; her train was very long, and the end of it borne by a marchioness; instead ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... near Richmond, Virginia, in 1777, in a low, level region called "the Slashes." He was one of seven children. His father was a Baptist clergyman, of fine voice and pleasing manner of speaking. He died when little Henry was four years old, leaving but a small sum for his family ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... his own annoyance, if not the discomfort of the people. To me the task was exceedingly disagreeable. My thin, feminine voice seemed to spend its volume before it had reached the middle of the line. Then, my rapid manner of speaking seemed to send the words in wild confusion into the distant part of the hall. But I soon learned to gauge my voice to the place, and, thereafter, I enjoyed unusual ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... possession of her, and when her mother one day carelessly remarked that possibly Captain Atherton would claim the fulfillment of her promise, she answered, in the cold, indifferent tone which now marked her manner of speaking, "Let him. I am ready and ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... of plying my trade at Lucerne,' replied Benedict. 'And now, as I see you are a German man, Lieber Herr, and as I like your countenance and your manner of speaking, I will tell you in confidence that I know very little of my trade, and have already been turned out of several fabriques as an evil workman; the two wash-balls that I carry in my pocket are not of my own making. In kurtzen, I know little more of soap-boiling ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... some loophole, as when for instance he discovered a trick for denying the movement of the earth, while he was a Copernican in the strictest sense. I suspect that he had in mind here another extraordinary manner of speaking, of his own invention, which was to say that affirmations and negations, and acts of inner judgement in general, are operations of the will. Through this artifice the eternal verities, which until the time of Descartes had been named an object of the divine understanding, suddenly ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... For I am an olde man, syr,' quod he, 'and I may remember the building of Tenterton Steeple, and I may remember when there was no steeple at all there. And before that Tenterton Steeple was a-building there was no manner of speaking of any flattes or sandes that stopped the haven; and, therefore, I thinke that Tenterton Steeple is the cause of the destroying and decaying of Sandwich Haven.' And even so to my purpose," says Latimer in conclusion, "is preaching of God's worde the cause ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... me. Where had I seen him before. There was something strangely familiar in every line of him; in his carriage, his manner of speaking, his gestures. I could have sworn that I knew him, and yet I knew too that I had ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... had listened to the conversation of these two men on philosophy and philosophers, which made a tremendous impression on me. I remember that Weiss was an absent-minded man, with a hasty and abrupt manner of speaking; he had an interesting and pensive expression which impressed me immensely. I recollect how, on being accused of a want of clearness in his writing and style, he justified himself by saying that the deep problems of the human mind could not in any case be solved by the mob. This maxim, which ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... or his agents. Just for what? That de Mersch may be the richest man in the world and a philanthropist. Well, then, where's Slingsby, if that's philanthropy? So Mr. Churchill comes along and says, in a manner of speaking, "That's all very well, but this same Mr. Mersch is the grand duke of somewhere or other, and we must bolster him up in his kingdom, or else there will be trouble with the powers." Powers—what's powers to me?—or Greenland? when there's Slingsby, ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... the pink of flirtation, he the essence of everything that is outre and gloomy.—I think I have completely deceived Charlotte by my manner of speaking of Mr. Dimple; she's too much the friend of Maria to be confided in. He is certainly rendering himself disagreeable to Maria, in order to break with her and proffer his hand to me. This is what the delicate fellow ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... you know she'd never heard of you?" asked Thorpe. He had a manner of speaking that was definite without being annoying. Apparently he was curious, ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... their doubts about the precise locality of the station indicated in the letter, when suddenly a man started up from the ground, and greeted them with the words "St. Agnes! all is right," which had been preconcerted as the signal in the letter. This man was courteous and respectful in his manner of speaking, and had nothing of the ruffian voice which belonged to the bearer of the letter. In rapid terms he assured Paulina that "the young general" had not found circumstances favorable for venturing within the walls, but that he would meet her a few miles beyond the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the families of the earth should think alike on subjects of religion. Let us take things as the sons of men have always found them, and not presume to oppugn Providence, who has decreed that there shall be, every where, men of different colours, countenances, voices, manner of speaking, of different feelings and views of things, and also of different languages and of different opinions, as it regards the Deity, and his government of the world; and that among this great and doubtless necessary diversity ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... had known him, and that I might have got you both together. You remind me of him, not only in looks, but by your manner of speaking." ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... assiduously those papers which give detailed accounts of the goings-on in the "hupper succles," and could give you with considerable accuracy the whereabouts of titled people. If he had a weakness, it was by his manner of speaking to insinuate that he knew certain noble persons whom, as a matter of fact, he had never set eyes on; he would not have told a direct lie on the subject, but his conscience permitted him a slight equivocation. Major Forsyth was well up in all the gossip of the clubs, and if he could ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... and manner of speaking, too, should likewise be attended to. Some will mumble over their words, so as not to be intelligible, and others will speak so fast as not to be understood, and in doing this, will sputter and spit in your face; some will bawl as if they were speaking to the deaf: others will speak so low as scarcely ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... ability. He is affable to every one, and enters freely into conversation with all who call upon him; nevertheless, he is extremely guarded at all times in expressing his opinions, and will never betray himself into an unguarded sentiment. His manner of speaking is extremely easy, and occasionally dull; and when in the Senate, he used to take his position by leaning against the pillar behind his seat, twirling in one hand his spectacles, while with the other he enforced, by slight ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... governor sent me down. I have been with the house some years. My job, I gathered, was to keep my eyes open generally. Sir Thomas, it seemed, had no suspicions of any definite person. I was to be on the spot just in case, in a manner of speaking. And it's precious lucky I was, or her ladyship's jewels would have been gone. I've done a fair cop ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... woods. Both Farrabesche and his son were specially developed on their physical side, possessing many of the characteristics of savages,—piercing sight, constant observation, absolute self-control, a keen ear, wonderful agility, and an intelligent manner of speaking. At the first glance the boy gave his father Madame Graslin recognized one of those unbounded affections in which instinct blends with thought, and a most active happiness strengthens both the will of the instinct and ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... well as to qualities of things yet more remote from our natural ideas of it, and from one another, has tended to confound our ideas of beauty, and left us no standard or rule to judge by, that was not even more uncertain and fallacious than our own fancies. This loose and inaccurate manner of speaking has therefore misled us both in the theory of taste and of morals; and induced us to remove the science of our duties from their proper basis (our reason, our relations, and our necessities), to rest it upon, foundations ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... good mother knew Philiper's ways So—well, she managed the money to raise; And old Flash himself Was "laid on the shelf," (In the manner of speaking we have nowadays). For "gracious knows, her darling child, If he went without money he'd soon grow wild." So Philiper Flash With a regular dash "Swung on to the reins," ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... hastily entered the library from the drawing-room. She was a tall and rather masculine-looking girl, with superb black eyes, dark hair growing low on her forehead, and something of her father's decision and bluntness in her manner of speaking. ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... still good, her utterance remarkably distinct, and when she spoke of the things of Christ, it was with no subdued or half-abashed tone, but with the same full, clear, cheerful voice. It was impossible to doubt that her heart was full of heavenly treasure from her very manner of speaking of divine things,—easy, energetic, unforced, graceful. I am afraid, that being so far below her in divine knowledge, my visits may have been of but little benefit to her: but however this may be, they were of great benefit to myself. She shewed an ardent love for the cause of Christ, for His ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... high and square, his chin massive. The form of his head and face denoted force of intellect. His long, muscular limbs gave evidence of great physical power. Even the tones of his voice, and his manner of speaking, betokened a strength of will that verged ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... for years before he can understand what people are saying to him. If you speak to him in a different way from that employed when speaking to others he will learn to understand that, but not your ordinary manner of speaking. He will also imitate it himself. The Chinaman speaks and understands only "Pidgin" English because only "Pidgin" English has been used in communicating with him. If people had spoken to the Chinaman as they do to other people he would ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... States while Hon. D. C. Leach, of Traverse City, was the Michigan Indian Agent. As-saw-gon was indeed quite an orator, considering his scanty opportunities. He had no education at all, but was naturally gifted as an orator. He was quite logical and allegorical in his manner of speaking. I have heard several white people remark, who had listened to his speeches through the imperfect interpreters, that he was as good a speaker as any orator who had been ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... the true way of influencing children for good, lies in the manner of speaking to them, treating them and living with them. Affection, truth, persuasion and perseverance should be manifest in the acts and manners of parents, for these qualities only can awaken sympathy and confidence in the ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
