B.B.C. ENGLISH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 56, 7 March 1934, Page 6

8.8.C. ENGLISH.

MR. BERNARD SHAW AGAIN,

We recently printed a letter in "The Times" from Mr. Bernard. Shaw, defending the pronunciation laid down by the 15.8.C. This evoked a lively correspondence, to which Mr. Shaw replied as follows on January i">: — "Last Monday two broadcasters discoursed 011 literature and economics. They used the words combated and inextricably respectively. I, who am just as good an authority on pronunciation as either of them, usually say cumbited and ineckstricably. They, being just as good authorities as I, said embattcd (rhyming to fatted) and inixtrickably. Clearly neither they nor I can claim usage 011 our side. As cumbited is easily mistaken when atmospherics are raging for comforted I think I shall say cmbatted when next I broadcast, unless indeed I shirk the word I am 110 longer quite sure about. As to the other, go as you please. There are thousands of words which have 110 usage because they are not very often used. Thoughtless speakers always .bounce at tlie first syllable and stress it; others have an instinct for the characteristic syllable. Sometimes the first syllable happens fortunately. to be the characteristic one; only children say ludickrus instead of loodicrous. But what about exemplary? "My grandfather, an educated country gentleman, occasionally swore by tlie virtue of his oath. He said: 'Be the varcliew o' me oath!' He called lip salve sawve. The actors of his time called lute lewt and flute flewt; and their be and me for by and my lasted well into my own day. I can even remember when oblecge was heard from old people as well as varcliew; but the spelling beat that, as it always does in the long run except when the word, like would or could, is in continual use. Pronunciations are always obsolescing and changing. If the 8.8.C. had existed a hundred years ago it would have been reviled for recommending vertew and oblyge instead of varcliew and obleege. To-day it has to deal with America, which would have it pronounce necessarily lieseserrily, rhyming to merrily. "Then there is the trouble about accents. In choosing an announcer regard must be had to the psychological effect of his accent. An Oxford accent is considered by many graduates of that University to be the perfection of correct English; but unfortunately over large and densely-populated districts of Great Britain it irritates some listeners to the point of switching off, and infuriates others so much that they smash their -wireless sets because the}' cannot smash the Oxonian. The best English to-day is literally the King's English. Like his Eoval grandmother before him, King George is the best speaker in his realm; and his broadcasts are astonishingly effective in creating loyalty. If he delivered a single broadcast in an Oxford accent his people would rise up that very day and proclaim a republic. "How little the situation is appreciated is shown by the ridiculous extent to which this correspondence has been occupied with the trivial case of Conduit Street. The name of that street is either grossly misspelt or grossly mispronounced, I do not know which. I have no doubt that if one of the new streets made by the London University and the British Museum be appropriately named Pundit Street it will be solemnly labelled Ponduit Street. What most of those who are supersensitive on the subject seem to mean is that if the name of a street is mispronounced by the inhabitants that name shall always be so mispronounced in every possible context. Let me remind them that Conduit Street is not the only street in London. There is in the city an ancient thoroughfare labelled Ave Maria Lane. The more cultivated of its denizens call it Aivmervcr Lane, the less fastidious Hivemerawyer Line. Are we of the 8.8.C. Committee expected to instruct the announcers to say: 'Miss Jenny Lind will now sing a group of songs beginning with Schubert's Aivmeryer'? Are we to beg the songstress to adapt that pronunciation as ' best she can to Schubert's notes?"