OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21904, 3 October 1936, Page 17

OUR MOTHER TONGUE

RANDOM NOTES ’ [By PROFESSOR ARNOLD WALL.] New Zealand. Speech * - My note on the deficiencies of -our speech has brought me several suggestions upon some of which I may comment further. One, from a teacher, -is that much of the ■ un- : pleasantness of the speech of boys is due to the onset of puberty, and that faults which they develop at that* period are < outgrown later on.' I quite agree that boys’ voices tend to be more harsh and perhaps more nasal at that awkward time, but I cannot believe that the actual sound of particular vowels or dip- : thongs changes. The little boy who says “heouse” will say it just in that way through his time of voicebreaking, and, if not corrected in time will carry it out with him into the gre't world. The stressing of the first syllable i of certain disyllables too strongly has been commented on by more than one correspondent; I have already spoken of it in an earlier note. Examples are “finance,” "defeat” (“deefeat”), “romance,” “estate,” which all tend to be sounded with this false stressing. No doubt the cinema is partly to blame, for “romance,”' for example, is thus stressed by the Americans with 'Whose speech the young become so very familiar, but this is, not all. There is a kind of pedantic superstition in this country in regard to the relation of spellh to pronunciation. It affects such words as “says” and “Sunday,” and I shall not be surprised if we soon begin to hear the p sounded in “cupboard,”, the c in “victuals,” and both the p and the s in “psalm.” Another correspondent, suggesting that our “accent is an amalgam,” invites me to decide “where accent ends and dialect begins.” “Accent” is a very vague- term, but one can see what is meant. .Certainly the standard English of to-day is a sort of amalgam in the sense that when, in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a standard became a necessity (with the invention of printing) the result was a mixture or compromise with the Midland’ dialect as a basis, but with elements from both the North and the South. Since that time, too, the influence

of both Northern and Western provincial speech has been more or less actively at work upon the “standard.” As regards New Zealand we may say that the typical speech is remarkably homogeneous, , and I agree' with my correspondent in thinking with some astonishment that Scots speech has had little, or no influence upon it in spite of the strong Scotch element in the population.

To another commentator who is puzzled by my references to the faulty diphthong in such words as “cow,” represented by the spelling “ceow,” I can only repeat my previous lamentations on my enforced abstention from the use of phonetic symbols, without which it is impossible to deal adequately with the subject of pronunciation. Perhaps the same reply will satisfy the complainant who livers that though she is of Australian birth and upbringing she has never heard “cold” pronounced as “cowld” according to my indictment, nor “lace” as “lice.” Idioms, in Question “Your” for “you’re.”' 'This is, of course, wrong, in spite of the example of G. B. Shaw, but when a critic also objects to “you’ve” for “you have” I cannot agree, for this is a very well established usage. “Mother-in-law” for “stepmother.” A correspondent notices this in Jane Austen and asks if it was a peculiarity of her own or a general usage. This is a curious and interesting case, for the term “mother-in-law,” when first used in the fifteenth century, (had its present sense and has never lost it, but during the sixteenth century, certain writers are found to be using it for “stepmother,” quite erroneously, and others followed this example, including such excellent; writers as Fuller (1642) and Fielding (1732), the last recorded use being that of Thackeray in “Vanity Fair” (1848). “Dessert.” I am asked when the sweets course ceased to be called “dessert” in English as it still is in the United States. The answer is that “dessert” in -English has always meant “ a course of fruit, sweetmeats, etc,, served after a dinner or supper,’i dating from. about 1600. The American usage is all their own and is recorde.. in American dictionaries for the sweets course since 1848. So we cannot explain our use of “dessert spoons” in this way, and I have never understof i how we are to explain it, “As you should have done.” The example in question runs thus: “Have you written to your mother? Weil, you should have done ” The critic objecting to this thinks that it should be “should have” oh “should have done so.” I cannot sustain the objection, for the use i f “do” as a substitute verb is old and well established (what we might have called a “proverb” on the analogy of “pronoun” if the word had not been otherwise occupied) and this trie seems to me to fall properly withih the bounds of the idiom, which however very frequently abused. , r , “Therefore.” The question 'is whether it is permissible, in certain circumstances, to begin a sentence with “therefore.” I should say that it certainly is. When a speaker or writer has given a number or reasons or causes and goes on to the effects it may be most convenient to make so great a pause as (to justify the use of the full stop, and the next sentence will properly begin with “therefore.” It would be pedantic to object to this, especially in these days of unbridled licence when so many, writers cheerfully put in fullstops "between phrases whidh contain no verbs—writers of the standing of H. G. Wells, for instance. Capitals. A correspondent asks whether it is correct to use capitals, in commercial typewriting, for “Bank, Company, Dairy Industry, Income Tax, etc.” These are not all oh the same footing, and no genera] rule could be laid down which would . cover all that might be included in that “etc.” In reference to any particular Lank or Company, of course, the capital must be used, but in the other two cases it might or might not, according to the exact sense or usage. In the case of Income Tax, for instance, the department must have the capital but the taxpayer need not use it in his curses.

Position of “only.” I am asked whether “only” should not always he placed immediately before the word it modifies—“he has only one brother,” not “he only has one brother.” The question is a rather difficult one to handle In a short space, but it may be said with safety that no hard and fast rule of this kind is either possible or desirable. Fowler has an excellent article on the question in his “English Usage” and I heartily agree with him in his [‘contention that liberty and elasticity

are most desirable in ail such cases as long as there is no ambiguity. The 'decision,of the Oxford Dictionary is: “Only was formerly placed away from the word or 1 words which it limited; this is stiH frequent in speech, where the stress and pauses prevent ambiguity, but is now avoided by perspicuous writers.” This implies, as Fowler observes, “that when perspicuity is not in danger it is needless to submit,to an. inconvenient restriction.” Tlvis applies to the above example perfectly.