Italian is a very different poetic situation and there are these hard and fast rhythmic periods, settenari, ottonari of seven and eight syllables. These are fundamental to the way people speak and write and breaking them is more radical in Italian than when we break a line. I'm sure there are Italian poets who want to write poetry as prose and break these Petrarchan rules. And breaking them is fun and a valid thing to do. But I'm more interested in trying to write poetry that absorbs tradition and uses it in new ways, and doesn't throw it out.
In a society in which equality is a fact, not merely a word, words of racial or sexual assault and humiliation will be nonsense syllables.
Fate loves best such syllables as are sweet and sonorous on the tongue.
Syllables govern the world.
out of great Russia came three dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die for: Bread, Peace, Land.
DNA is an abbreviation for deoxyribonucleicantidisestablishmentarianism, a complex string of syllables.
Some syllables are swords.
A person rises on a word and falls on a syllable.
I played Thersites and I remember we were also doing some places out of town before starting our run at The Old Vic in London and we were at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford and I walked on stage and I've got an opening speech that begins: "Agamemnon, how if he had boils?" And I went on and said: "Agamemnon. . . " And a woman in the front row just went 'tut'. I thought: "I've only done four syllables, give us a chance!" I got one word out and the audience were already tutting. It was worse than any heckle I ever had doing comedy. So, I'll stick to gnomes.
Democracy has become, unless I mistake, a kind of test or shibboleth, by which we try men and measures; and this is the same as to say that it is merely a word which is powerful with us, and not the wide and true notion of what the word means. But we must define the true import of words, and not be slaves to syllables; for democracy in form is not necessarily people-power in fact, but power perhaps of a few, who cajole the many and so lead and use the people for their own ends.
You're from where?" "Lay'en. It's near Salt Lake City. " "Spell that for me. " "Um, that would be S-A-L-T-" "No, the other one. The city you're from. " "Oh. L-A-Y-T-O-N. " "Ah-Lay-ton. " That's what I said. " "No you didn't. You just said, 'Lay'en. '" "So I did. But just go ahead and pronounce 'aluminum' for me, Mr. British Man. How are you going to defend that piece of insanity? Why don't you spell it and count syllables and see if your al-um-in-ium makes sense whatsoever?" He bowed his head. "Touch. . .
Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty and her wit: "an unusual combination," in the deliberate syllables of one of the writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when speaking of her.
Got more milky syllables than alphabet cereals.
The more syllables a euphemism has, the further divorced from reality it is.
It seems to me that the contrast between adjacent syllables has lessened and the result is an over-reliance on enjambment. Now enjambment is a fine, intellectually strong aid, but like all such things it becomes tiresome and calls too much attention to itself.
One needs but to say that, in the case of an unfamiliar sequence of syllables, only about seven can be grasped in one act, but that with frequent repetition and gradually increasing familiarity with the series this capacity of consciousness may be increased
All great song, from the first day when human lips contrived syllables, has been sincere song.
For a sentence is not complete unless each word, once its syllables have been pronounced, gives way to make room for the next.
that darkest of syllables, death.