$ cat bin/say
#!/usr/bin/env ruby

class String
  # return this string in qoutes
  def quote
    return '"' + self + '"'
  end

  # copied from file lib/shellwords.rb, line 69
  # escapes a string according to sh rules
  def shellescape str = self
    return "''" if str.nil? # added by nailor
    # An empty argument will be skipped, so return empty quotes.
    return "''" if str.empty?

    str = str.dup

    # Process as a single byte sequence because not all shell
    # implementations are multibyte aware.
    str.gsub!(/([^A-Za-z0-9_\-.,:\/@\n])/n, "\\\\\\1")

    # A LF cannot be escaped with a backslash because a backslash + LF
    # combo is regarded as line continuation and simply ignored.
    str.gsub!(/\n/, "'\n'")

    return str
  end

  def asciify
    return self.tr("^A-Za-z0-9_.\-", "_")
  end
end

if ARGV.length < 1
  STDERR.puts "need an argument"
  Process.exit(-1)
end

text = ARGV.join(" ")

text = text.shellescape

p text
system "echo #{text} | espeak -v de --stdin --stdout | aplay"