Careful Words

tell (n.)

tell (v.)

While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.

  I may tell all my bones.

Old Testament: Psalm xxii. 17.

I cannot tell how the truth may be;

I say the tale as 't was said to me.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 22.

  Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon.

Old Testament: 2 Samuel i. 20.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

"Life is but an empty dream!"

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): A Psalm of Life.

Tell me the tales that to me were so dear,

Long, long ago, long, long ago.

Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839): Long, long ago.

Gentle shepherd, tell me where.

Samuel Howard (1710-1782).

Ah, tell them they are men!

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 6.

Oh who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 1.

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women

Rail on the Lord's anointed.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 4.