Affected Speech Quotes

At first I thought I would have to put on an English accent and try a sort of affected Shakespeare thing.

I'm with an old family" was the euphemism used to dignify the professions of white folks' cooks and maids who talked so affectedly among their own kind in Roxbury [Massachusetts] that you couldn't even understand them.

Mawah meenon ne le plus poohlala," I say with an affected bow.

I learned to impersonate the kind of person that talks about poetry. It comes from teaching, I think.

Just as in habiliments it is a sign of weakness to wish to make oneself noticeable by some peculiar and unaccustomed fashion, so, in language, the quest for new-fangled phrases and little-known words comes from a puerile and pedantic ambition.

The 'New York Honk,' as it was called, was the most fashionable accent an American male could have at that time, namely, the spring of 1963. One achieved it by forcing all words out through the nostrils rather than the mouth. It was at once virile... and utterly affected. Nelson Rockefeller had a New York Honk.

I talk in that baby talk voice when I'm on TV, it's a put on.

It is curious and interesting to notice what an attraction a fussy, mincing, nickel-plated word has for you.