Hard palate

“ Bring the tone forward, direct it against the hard palate just above the upper teeth, send it up through the head with a vigorous impulse of the diaphragm. You must always feels the tone in the nasal cavities. ”

“ Even in cases where a deficiency in the hard palate presents so great an obstacle to sucking, on account of the impossibility of creating the necessary vacuum in the mouth, the difficulty can be overcome by a simple mechanical contrivance. ”

“ As the crude tone issues from the larynx, the mouth, tongue and soft palate, moulding themselves by the most delicately adaptive movements into every conceivable variety of shape, clothe the raw bones of sound with body and living richness of tone. ”

“ That velvety softness—that subdued strength, faintly recalling Burgundy, and that delicious bouquet, would all be clean thrown away on most people. I declare, I believe a refined palate is just as rare as a correct ear ”

“ The taste and the smell, like the touch, convey more direct intelligence than the eye and the ear, and are less likely than those senses to aid in misleading the imagination. We have seen the palate, in the case of the porridge-fed lunatic, enter its protest against the acquiescence of eyes, ears, and touch, in the gay visions which gilded the patient’s confinement. ”

“ But a pair of lips, designed to convey to the palate the taste of whatever whets the appetite, must be content, without ever realising their mistake or admitting their disappointment, with roaming over the surface and with coming to a halt at the barrier of the impenetrable but irresistible cheek. ”

“ These abnormalities are found only among us human beings,—and yet we regard ourselves as superior to the animal creation! Surely those who spend their days in the worship of their stomach are worse than the birds and beasts.
A calm reflection will show that all sins like lying, cheating and stealing are ultimately due to our subjection to the palate. He who is able to control the palate, will easily be able to control the other senses. ”

“ The palate, which at first perceived only the coarse and violent qualities of either, will, as it becomes more experienced, acquire greater subtilty and delicacy of discrimination, perceiving in both agreeable or disagreeable qualities at first unnoticed, which on continued experience will probably become more influential than the first impressions ”

“ I burned with passion for this charming girl; but would I have done so in her taste for literature and science had not been backed up by her personal charms? I suspect not. I like a dish pleasing to the palate, but if it is not pleasing to the eye as well, I do not taste it but put down as bad. The surface is always the first to interest, close examination comes afterwards. ”

“ The tongue, which has so much to do with talking, has a good deal to do with tasting. It is indeed one of the chief instruments by which the sensation of taste is experienced. The palate is also another organ of importance in the perception of taste. ”

“ In Negligent Lisping, this inability properly to imitate correct speech processes, results in the substitution of an incorrect sound for the correct one with consequent faulty formation of words.
ORGANIC LISPING: This results from an organic or physical defect in the vocal organs, such as hare-lip, feeble lip, malformation of the tongue, defective teeth, overshot or undershot jaw, high palatal arch, cleft palate, defective palate, relaxed palate following an operation for adenoids, obstructed nasal passages or defective hearing. ”

“ The main point however is, that our tongue and palate have been trained and fashioned from our childhood to particular tastes, likings, and antipathies; so that often the very best, most judicious, and admirable thing, if it come across us on a sudden as a novelty, as something we have never set tooth on, and thus give a shock to all our prepossessions, will be disregarded and abused ”

“ To these matters I have already called attention in a previous publication, in connection with the man who was deprived of his larynx by a surgical operation, but not of his power of speech.
A similar experiment may be made in regard to breathing. By making the soft palate, representing the thorax, rigid, you will not be able to inspire, though you may expire. By making the bottom of the mouth close to your teeth (the soft palate of the lower jaw) , representing the abdomen, rigid, you will not be able to expire, though you may inspire. With a German the precisely opposite facts prevail. ”

“ Taste seems to nanifest itself in a preference or selection of what is agreeable to the ear, the eye, the touch, the smell, and the palate, and consequently does not exercise any influence over us in the common wants of life. ”

“ The nose and mouth were delicate and almost ineffeminate, with lips tightly closed as though he feared to reveal emotion in opening them. You see women and children with mouths set in that thin, hard line when they know a wickering lip or catch in the breath will give the lie to their brave front. ”

“ One’s palate-gusto is distinctly enhanced by something pleasant to look upon, by something artistic to accompany the mere mechanism of mastication, by a general sense of beauty and non-flamboyant restfulness. ”

“ But where the mind is weak and the delights of bodily sensation strong, the pleasures of taste or the charm of varied sensations in the palate dwell on the imagination and excite it to renewed indulgence of physical sensations, irrespective of the wants of the internal organism, and this even notwithstanding its declining health and manifest debility.” The morbid cravings of the sense of perverted taste, or any other sense, must not be confounded, therefore, with the natural appetite excited by the wants of the internal organism. ”

“ Hence, when in mastication we inopportunely encounter anything of disagreeable taste, we at once separate our jaws to get the tongue as far as possible from the palate or to prevent any further rubbing of the upper face of the tongue and repetition of the bad taste. ”

“ The concurrence of teeth, palate and tongue, in the formation of speech should seem to be indispensable, and yet men have spoken distinctly though wanting a tongue, and to whom, therefore, teeth and palate were superfluous. ”

“ As before shown, the soft palate is constantly being used more or less, and when it and the tongue unite in action so as to cut off the mouth cavity, or, more strictly, the anterior portion of it, from the nasal chambers, a very pronounced modification in the tone results, and, of necessity, such actual escape of breath as occurs takes place through the nose. In reality, there is a special modification of the shape of the resonance-chambers for every tone produced, and especially when the color or quality is changed, as well as the pitch. ”

“ Mens palates are as various as their faces, and like a good ordinary we would offer up a dish for every palate. In the time of the ancient Romans we are told that the fat paps of the sow where held a great dainty. ”

“ They, like the palate, are gifted with a portion of the appreciative faculties; I do not know that, in certain cases, the nose does not participate, and if but for the odor which is felt in the back of the mouth, the sensation of taste would not be obtuse and imperfect.
Persons who have no tongue or who have lost it, yet preserve the sensation of taste. ”

“ The soft palate, also, possesses the sense of taste; hence, an article that has an agreeable flavor may very properly be spoken of as palatable, as is often done. All parts of the tongue do not perceive equally well the same flavors. Thus, the front extremity and margin, which is the portion supplied by the "fifth pair" of nerves, perceives more acutely sweet and sour tastes; but the base of the tongue, supplied by the glosso-pharyngeal nerve, is especially sensitive to salt and bitter substances. ”

“ As the nerves are also in less quantity, and more divided over the tongue, and palate, and the odoriferous parts are not strong enough to affect them, the oily or saline parts must detach themselves from other bodies, and lodge upon the tongue to produce the sensation of taste. ”

“ In like manner, many passages in Shakespeare and others of the best writers in all languages can only be spoken with effect by those with a mastery over the tongue, lips, soft palate, etc., but above all, the tongue.
Important as are the lips, many persons tend to use them too much, and the tongue too little, in speaking and singing. They attempt to make up for a mouth almost closed in front by the teeth, by excessive movements of the lips. ”

“ We have our own 'accent,' as it is called. We are a nervous, eager, strident people. We know it, tho we do not relish having foreigners tell us about it. We speak not mellowly, not with lax tongues and palates, but sharply, shrilly, with hardened mouth and with tones forced back upon the palate. We strangulate two-thirds of our vowels and swallow half the other third. Pure, round, sonorous tones are almost never heard in our daily speech."
Speak from the abdomen. All the effort, all the motive power, should come from the waist and abdominal muscles. ”

“ Sunken gray eyes too dull and cold to light up, marked a hard, stony face, the salient features of which was a thin lipped, compressed mouth, with corners drawn down deeply—the mouth which seems the world over to be the index of selfish, cruel, sulky malignance. It is such a mouth as has the school boy—the coward of the play ground, who delights in pulling off the wings of flies. ”

“ And the cheeks, too, are aids to speech, contracting and expanding in accordance with their structural arrangement, or propelling the voice through a narrow passage by various movements of the tongue, which it effects now with one part of itself now with another, giving hardness or softness to the sound which passes over it by contact with the teeth or with the palate. ”

“ Sir William Roberts has well said that the palate is the dietetic conscience, but he adds that there are many misfit palates, and we may well query whether our dietetic consciences have not become generally perverted through a false mode of living. ”

“ They should not only be nicely prepared, but much care and ingenuity should be shown in the arraying of them on the platter. To prepare palate-pleasing entrees one must study to please the eye quite as much as the palate. ”

“ They have no taste; but if they had a bad one, I will not now suppose you such a child, as to let the frowardness of your palate interfere in the least with the recovery or enjoyment of health. The latter deserves the utmost attention of the most rational man; the former is the only proper object of the care of a dainty, frivolous woman. ”

“ Thus, a highly discriminating palate may have saved the life of animals and savages, but what can its subtleness do nowadays beyond making us into gormandisers and winebibbers, or, at best, into cooks and tasters for the service of gormandising and winebibbing persons? ”

“ Most of us determine the goodness of our food by the amount of sensual delight it imparts to the palate, no matter how much damage it may do beyond to the delicate and intricate structure of the stomach and viscera. ”

“ The preparing of a spoonful of gruel may seem a very insignificant matter; yet who that stands by the sick-bed of one near and dear to him, and sees the fevered palate relieved, the exhausted frame refreshed by it, but will bless the hand that made it? ”

“ If the resonance of the air in the nasal cavities exerts any influence on the tones of the voice, this influence cannot be increased, diminished, or prevented by any direct action on the part of the singer. Shutting off the entrance of the breath, by raising the soft palate, is possible as a muscular exercise. But it is impossible to perform this action, and to sing artistically, at the same time. To produce any kind of tone, while holding the soft palate raised, is extremely difficult. ”

“ The nerves of the nose and palate are so disposed, as in certain circumstances to convey such peculiar sensations to the mind; the sensations of lust and hunger always produce in us the idea of those peculiar objects, which are suitable to each appetite. ”

“ The broad flat nose and the thick wide lips are often repulsive because they suggest the African, if for no other reason. But I suspect that the thick lips are also a defect because they are in themselves a hindrance to efficient speech, and more vitally because they connote an inefficient formation of the mouth, palate and glottis. ”

“ Yet they reject drink when offered from dread of the pain of swallowing; for they undergo great agony both by the compression of the palate and by the return of the liquid through the nose. No sooner have they lain down than they spring up again; then finding they cannot bear an upright posture, no sooner have they sat down than they are forced by their agony to lie back once more. ”