STANDARDS OF ENGLISH

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27675, 3 June 1955, Page 12

STANDARDS OF ENGLISH

PI.EA FOR LIBERAL ATTITUDE ACCEPTANCE OF CHANGES IN SPEECH “English is not a static language; it constantly adds words which it finds convenient, and it is constantly changing.” On these grounds Professor lan Gordon, professor of English at Victoria University College, made a plea last evening for a more liberal attitude towards the New Zealand way of speaking English and, towards the many pronunciations which different English-speak-ing nations adopted. He was addressing a meeting of the North Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute.

“The noises you make and I make do not correspond to the noises made by Englishmen speaking in the times of Shakespeare, Chaucer, or Alfred the Great. English, like many other languages, is continually changing not only its vocabulary and its sentence structure, but also its noises,” he said.

Children in New Zealand today should not be forced to speak with the measured and undoubtedly beautiful tones of the standard Southern English dialect—the English of the 8.8. C., he said. “I think it is useless for New Zealanders to try to have their children speak a dialect like this. As a group. New Zealanders do not speak it,” said Professor Gordon. “We should accept the fact that already in New Zealand we have another of those mutations which we see through the whole phonetic history of the English language. “I make a plea for the frank acceptance of the New Zealand way of speech in the class room. Our children are not speaking any horrible, inferior dialect. That does not mean that we should tolerate slurred, garbled speech or nasty ■noises. What we want is good, clear, understandable New’ Zealand language.”

Tolerance of Slang In conversation, a colloquial style could be cultivated, and there some slang was inevitable and was to be tolerated, he said. But whena child came to write something, a different, more correct, more formal style was to be desired. Anything written could be read and re-read.

During the nineteenth century written English was long-winded, rather stilted, and pompous. Professor Gordon said. This style was still to be found in letters from publK servants and other officials, who

, not write in that way 1 _>m c jbut because they had been broug to believe it was good English. I Modern written style w_s eas.er to understand, contained fewer long Latinised words, and the sentences were shorter. Professor Gordon saidClarity, simplicity, and vigour were now to be de.* >red, and the children of today should be brought up to the English of their day and age. On broadcasting, Professor Gordon, himself an experienced radio speaker, spoke in favour of a simple, clearly understandable, spoken English style. Broadcasters should talk naturally, “like cur friend Aunt Daisy. I think she is a terrible influence, but she is a wonderful broadcaster,” he said. “She goes across because she almost says. T am going to be a chatty, gabby female, and it doesn’t matter if people laugh at me, because there are a lot of chatty, gabby females about’.”