How to Improve the
Circumflex Inflection of Your Speech

Inflections are glides of the voice from one pitch to another, and may be Rising, Falling or Circumflex. Circumflex inflection is used in language of double meaning, irony, insinuation, etc.

Here are some excerpts for you to practice your circumflex inflection:

1. 0 Rome ! Rome ! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Ay! thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd-lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe:- to gaze into the glaring eye-balls of the fierce Numidian lion even as a boy upon a laughing girl!

2. And this man
Is now become a god; and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain ,
And, when the fit was on him, I did mark
How be did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their color fly;
And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose its luster.

"Julius Caesar." SHAKESPEARE.

3. None dared withstand him to his face, But one sly maiden spake aside: "The little witch is evil eyed! Her mother only killed a cow,
Or witched a churn or dairy-pan; But she, forsooth, must charm a man!"

4. It is vastly easy for you, Mistress Dial, who have always, as everybody knows, set yourself up above me,-it is vastly easy for you, I say, to accuse other people of laziness.

5. But were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of CaBsar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

"Julius Caesar." SHAKESPEARE.

6. Do you think to frighten me? you I Do you think to turn me from any purpose that I have, or any course I am resolved upon, by reminding me of the solitude of this place and there being no help near? Me, who am here alone designedly? If I had feared you, should I not have avoided you ? If I feared you, should I be here in the dead of night, telling you to your face what I am going to tell? But I tell you nothing until you go back to that chair-except this once again. Do not dare to come near me-not a step nearer. I have something lying here that is no love trinket; and sooner than endure your touch once more, I would use it on you-and you know it while I speak-with less reluctance than I would on any other creeping thing that lives.