THE BEST ENGLISH.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BEST ENGLISH.

Reviewing a book on the English language by a Scot who is a professor at Newcastle, an American paper says he distinguishes four possible main standard pronunciations: public school standard of England, sometimes called Southern English; Scots standard, Irish standard, American standard. "He has no use whatever for the first of these, although the claim is made for it that it should take precedence of the other three and be the standard for them all, and calls it 'the silliest and dwabliest'—which means feeblest—'of all the English dialects' and 'a gross travesty of English speech.'" The one he would like,to see prevail, at least among educated* people in the British Isles and the dependencies, is the Irish standard as spoken by the educated classes in Dublin, which he considers as pure and harmonious a form of English as the heart of man could desire. Next after this he likes the American standard, which he thinks will prevail in the United States, anyway. These two standards, Irish and American, could, lie believes, very well live side by side among the . English-speaking peoples, each winning the respect and understanding of those who used the other, for they are more akin than are the American and- the Southern English standards.