Anguish Languish

September 22, 2003 12:19 PM

It’s not what you say, it's the way you say it--Part 2. This observation was cleverly illustrated by Prof. Howard L. Chace in Anguish Languish, an exercise to demonstrate to his French Language students that intonation is key to understanding spoken language. Here is the complete text. You can read his best known Furry Tell about a Wicket Woof and a Ladle Gull or hear it read.(Warning-has sound.) I first found out about Howard Chace from an article in The Whole Earth Catalog and certain phrases have rattled around my head ever since. Here is a discussion of Anguish Languish if you want to write your own. Like this version of Gender Cyst from the Homely Babble.
posted by lobakgo (5 comments total)

Wonder if Chace's been studying the "wrongers who write what they are dine to live" guy?

An amazing poet, but some say he was a Picasso.
posted by soyjoy at 12:58 PM on September 22, 2003

oww. Nigh heed hertz.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:05 PM on September 22, 2003

"There's figures on this – 70% of what people react to is the look, 20% is how you sound; and only 10% is what you say."

Eddie Izzard
posted by grabbingsand at 1:28 PM on September 22, 2003

What about The Minikin Incarnadine Cowl-Titivated Gamine? I talk like that all the time.

Thank you lobakgo - this is good.
posted by iconomy at 1:33 PM on September 22, 2003

oww. Nigh heed hertz.

Meat ooh.
posted by puffin at 2:46 PM on September 22, 2003