Word: hearers
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...psychologists that the words commonly thought to be ugly-sounding are so considered, consciously or unconsciously, because of unpleasant associations and not because of phonetical harshness. Scholars recognize a few words as truly onomatopoeic; e.g., tinkle, plash, squawk. But in the vast majority of cases the reaction of a hearer is determined by meaning, not by combinations of vowels and consonants...
...tremendous scope of the Ring with its mass of detail is frightening to many a first hearer. Richard Wagner was 26 years writing it, doing first the poem of Die Gotterdammerung, prefacing it then with Siegfried, Die Walkure, Rheingold. Before the music was written Wagner turned out Tristan and Die Meistersinger, operas that he trusted to keep him before the public while the great tetralogy was in its slow making. The Ring's music was written chronologically. Its design is like a symphony with Rheingold corresponding to an introductory first movement; Walkure to a tender andante; Siegfried...
...balanced musical tones, according to an observation by Dr. Vern Oliver-Knudsen, acoustic expert at the University of California. In ordinary weather, low tones carry much better than high ones, which have less energy. In humid air the high tones ride on the particles of suspended moisture, helping the hearer to perceive the complete orchestration...
...statistical proof that this new law of language applies to syllables as well as words. With mechanical accuracy the more common cases of inflected nouns in Sanskrit are accented on the stem, while less used cases, genitive and dative for example, are accented on the endings to aid the hearer's ear. "For man's tendency to laziness," says Zipf, "will prevent his accenting any element in language which his hearer will understand with cut accent...
...Many a hearer of the schoolmasters' bitter words was indignant. But some were startled to thought. Was it true that women bribed, corrupted? Are any U. S. educators ever amenable to bribery...