ABSTRACT
Words sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man’s first, immeasurable feat of magic. They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past.
LEO ROSTEN, screenwriter, humorist
Vast differences separate written language, which is visual, and spoken language, which is auditory. Terms used in describing speech are different from those used in writing:
Writers sometimes struggle to express the sounds of real speech on the page:
The Flower Girl. Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y’ de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel’s flahrzn than ran awy athaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f’ them?1
