date formatting in Oracle
figured this out, here is a solution in case someone needs to do something similar...

using double quotes "" around characters will display them as they are...

select to_char(sysdate,'"Today is the" Ddspth "of" fmMONTH,Yyyysp') as Today from dual


will display:

"Today is the" Eighteenth "of" MARCH, Two Thousand Fourteen