A PLEA FOR PURE ENGLISH.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 770, 19 March 1910, Page 9

A PLEA FOR PURE ENGLISH.

"Sir," asked the,, divinity student of the Autocrat at- thii; Breakfast Tabic, "can't a, man who says. Haow ? arrive at distinction?" "Sir," replied the Autocrat, "in a republic all things' , are possible. 'I But the man waili-Cri.-future x has almost of necessity sense enough to see 'that any odious tricl; of speech or manners must be got rid of. Doesn't Sydney Smith say that a public , man in England never.vgets a false quantity uttered : in early life?'. Our public men are in little danger of this fatal mis-step, as few of them are in the habit of introducing Latin into - their speeches—for good and sufficient reasons.-' But they are bound to, speak decent English." Tne shaft loosed by Oliver Wendell Holmes at his countrymen fifty, years ago still finds its target, if we may judge not merely by what we "read in American books but by what we hear/from'native censors. Professor Finley, of New York, for example, has just been lifting up an earnest voice against the universal tendency in.America > to debase the" mother tongue, to corrupt it by slang, >nd to spoil its music and ijts message by'slovcnly mannerisms and those vocal.' peculiarities l which "make Americans a marked people wherever they go." We may not hastily condemn a nation which is in process of: assimiliating the polyglot elements .of - more, than half the globe/ Nearly all our speech—probably air of,it—is metaphor viewed from a distance. - The Teutons and' latins and Slavs who aire contributing their quota to the production of a distinctly American ethos (which. cannot remain permanently An-glo-Saxon) iuovitably project some oi their own mental coinage into the verbal currency-of-the'country; and it is not surprising that this should tend to the enrichment of slang, which may be termed the copper coinage of verbal intercourse. But if the tide .cannot be/dammed in the street surely it- may' bo prevented from swamping- those; quiet/groves where literature ought to ba. flourishing. If.it. is, encroaching may ,have ground for believing that the connection between the corruption of a 'language and laxity, not to say license, in public morals is' not so difficult to trace as might be: supposed. Tho old saying that he who Would make an atrocious pun would not hesitate to pick a pocket is not so foolish l as it looks;, it has its root.-in the feeling that equivocation is closely nkin to dishonesty. And the slang which is at the antipodes to all simplicity. and gravity ! and perspicuity, whatever its ethical . .relations may be, when it has made captive a lively and versatile people like .the Americans, whose..-genius always seems to bo ebullient and explosive, renders, the produce tion of a stately, stable literature sn utter impossibility. There are a few capable self-respecting writers in America | to-day. But one would search the entire corpus 'issuing''from,--'a press working at top speed for a parallel to this example of English undefiled:—"The'poor is hungry and athirst; but: for him also there is food and drink; ho is heavy laden and weary; but: lor him also the Heavens eend sleep,', and of the deepest; in his smoky cribs', a clear dewy' heaven of rest envelopes'him arid fitful glimmerings of cloud-skirted dreams." One turns from the simple eloquence of Carlyle to the following extract from one of the most "popular" of American authors:—"l stood tho show at the Athenaeum till a fine antique, with genuine Chippendale legs, came out and began to sing,--' They are sitting up. with sister, Oh, he spurned a loving heart,' -winding ■up each verse with, a gush of grief to the feet. first she'd reach for nim out in the wings, and then over her head. If she Could have landed on him just once with' either hooflet. 6ister would have been avenged." When the race of Georgo .Horace Lorimers increases and .:multiDlies, what wonder that even miniature sditions of Carlyle are scarce. v

America, says "Professor Finiojy has no iialects. Their absence is natural, for .Ualects are the roots of language. The jpoech current in the United States has Us roots on this side of tho Atlantic, nnd all that our kinsmen have been ible to do by way of proving their share in the ancestral estate has been to hang uctitious fruit on the venerable branches, as one decorates a Christmas tree. with tinselled toys and the transient glow of tiny candles. Our heritage of folkBpeech is something to be proud of and '.*•: cherish. There ar« some misguided

pooplo of limited .'education and still morn limited sagacity who imagine that whatever is vulgar is. synonymous with whatever is mean and contemptible. On the contrary, the persistence of local varieties in speech adds not only to tho picturesqneness of life, but is a guarantee that tho language of which we boast continues to-be still in process of growth. What enrichment does not tho classical language of this, country owe to the 'peasant-Burns, to whose genius the "viilitav" tongue responded as a harp to the minstrel and sent its yirile strains echoing down the "corridors'of.time"? There is a danger, of-course, of tho literary -language being corrupted if peculiar idioms current witli the people find acceptance. But the. danger is slight. -The grammatical structure of the English tongue is fixed. All that we can do is to add legitimately to its wealth of epithet, and • that. enrichment can be gained by not only condoning but vrelcoming the additions which can bo made -from the: treasure, house of dialect. Objections made, not by.the cultured but the "ciilchawcd," to the linguistic peculiarities of different regions. may be ignored. Glasgow's by ho moans unobtrusive lilt, the penetrating vocalisation of the . Aberdonian, the. broad, ■ rich vowels of the Border, tho burr of the Northumbrian, the indolent phrasing of Somerset and Devon, all of them so significant of climatic conditions and racial characteristics will endure, as some of them have endured, since the mother tongue arose. Their perpetuation is no doubt menaced by the fanatical desire ,for uniformity prevalent in some quarters. But we have strong hope that the commonalty will be tenacious of their heritage. They have the awful example of London—"Where' every something, being blent together, turns to a wild of nothing"— to encourage them in resistance. London" has no dialect. It has only a speech "of sorts."' The Cockney, tongue is the last phase'of a language verging on extinction—a nerveless, "feckless" assortment of slurred syllables in which neither the throat nor the lungs but only the lips and the.teeth can claim an audible part. From such a deplorable attenuation of the noble art of speaking we shall bo saved so -long as English continues to be spoken by men' who are not. afraid to put a consonantal backbone . into their speech —"The Standard."-' ... .' •