IMPROVED SPEECH

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 203, 28 August 1935, Page 8

IMPROVED SPEECH

YOUNG PEOPLE. ELOCUTIONIST'S OPINION. N.Z. STANDAED HIGH. Dismissing as negligible the effects of broadcasting and talking pictures, Mr. A. Watson, who arrived from Sydney by the Wanganella this morning to conduct examinations in elocution on behalf of the Trinity College of Music, London, declared that the. standard of speech throughout the English-speaking world was being improved by the young people, who were beginning to realise that to have a good accent and intonation was a great asset in life. "I do not think wireless or talking pictures matter .a rush" he remarked. "They may make a few people a little more fastidious, but such fastidiousness often becomes pedantry. People are more inclined to criticise and to remember an announcer's mistakes or his pedantry than to imitate him. Nor do the young people get their accent from the talking pictures, though they may sometimes reproduce it for fun. They learn their habits of speech in their homes and therefore the major responsibility rests on the parents." "As' Important as Appearance." At Perth, where he conducted examinations before coming to New Zealand, Mr. Watson was conscious, lie said, of a very definite advance in clearness of intonation, but what pleased him more than anything else was the number of lads and young men who came up for examination. In previous years examinations and competitions in elocution had been confined generally to girls and young women. This showed, he thought, that the young people were beginning to realise that speech was as important as appearance in making a good impression. "Too many young women who choose with the greatest of care the colour they put on their lips are not so careful of the speech that comes from those lips," he remarked. "It is my theory that many people try to speak as fa'st as they read the printed page," stated Mr. Watson. "In examinations, therefore, I always look for intelligibility and avoidance of careless and slovenly utterance. I must say, however, that after six lecture and concert tours of this Dominion, I have very pleasant recollections of the speech of the people here. I remember that, on my first visit. 23 years ago. I walked behind two gentlemen through Albert l'ark for the pleasure of listening to their refined speech. Tn Christchurch, too, on that same tour, while I was unpacking in my bedroom at an hotel. I heard two ladies speaking outside my door, and from their accent judged them to be guests in the hotel. I was surprised to discover, when I opened my door that they were waiting maids. Not every one here s[>eaks carefully, of course, but the general standard of speech is good." New Zealand's Flowers. What Mrs. Watson, who is accompanying her husband on this, as on previous visits, has remembered about New Zealand during the five years since their las'* tour of the Dominion, is the abundance of flowers. "I have never in all the world seen so many and such beautiful flowers as in New" Zealand," she remarked this morning. "In Onmaru —or was it Timaru? —I saw begonias the like of which I do not think have ever been grown elsewhere. lam sorry that we have come back at the wrong time of the year for us to see them again, but I am told that you have flowers of one kind or another almost all the year round." Mr. and Mrs. Watson will leave for Wellington to-morrow night, as the examinations will he held first in the south. They expect to return to Auckland about the middle of October and, after the examinations here, will sail again for Australia. Before returning to London Mr. Watson will conduct examinations in Sydney. Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide and South African centres.