{"id":212956,"date":"2025-01-11T11:36:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-11T11:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/11\/reading-aloud\/"},"modified":"2025-01-11T11:36:25","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T11:36:25","slug":"reading-aloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/11\/reading-aloud\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Aloud"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Reading<\/div>


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The Harvard Sentences<\/a> are hundreds of sentences that have been used for many decades to test technologies in which understanding speech is essential, like telephone systems and hearing aids. I came across the list recently and was charmed by it.<\/p>\n

Some sample sentences: It\u2019s easy to tell the depth of a well. The hogs were fed chopped corn and garbage. Help the woman get back to her feet. The harder he tried the less he got done. It caught its hind paw in a rusty trap. Write a fond note to the friend you cherish. Most of the news is easy for us to hear.<\/p>\n

These sentences weren\u2019t chosen for their meaning but for their \u201cphonetic balance,\u201d the way <\/span>their frequency of sounds are similar to spoken language. They\u2019re tools, not advice or koans. But reading them I felt moved as when reading a poem. I found a site where you can listen to people read the sentences<\/a> in different accents and tried to see if it was possible to hear a series of lines aloud without them gathering meaning. These narrators were particularly skilled at reading without affect, but it\u2019s impossible to listen to even the least emotive person recite: \u201cThe stray cat gave birth to kittens. The young girl gave no clear response. The meal was cooked before the bell rang. What joy there is in living,\u201d and not detect some poetry.<\/p>\n

Is there a person on earth who doesn\u2019t love to be read to? Children get storytime, nightly if they\u2019re lucky, but once we know how to read we typically do it by ourselves. Last year I wrote about audiobooks as bedtime stories for adults<\/a>, how they can tap into that desire that\u2019s maybe dormant in all of us, the desire to have our sleep treated as a project worthy of coaxing and custodianship. Every few months I let Joseph Brodsky reading his poem \u201cA Song\u201d<\/a> lull me to sleep. Recently a friend and I read each other portions of Walt Whitman\u2019s \u201cSong of Myself.\u201d Reading to someone is different from simply speaking to them. The words aren\u2019t yours, so you don\u2019t own the thoughts or meaning, only the communication. You\u2019re free to interpret, to perform. It\u2019s a process of co-discovery, intimate but, unlike conversation, the content comes from a third party. It\u2019s about connecting and it\u2019s also about consuming art together, whether that art is a poem or \u201cThe Polar Express\u201d or a novel from which you and your sweetheart read alternating chapters to each other while cooking dinner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n