OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 206, 28 May 1938, Page 9

OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Random Notes (By Pbqfessob Arnold Wall.) While we smile at our fathers, who believed that the earth was flat, that horsehairs turned into eels, and that witches danced with the devil, there are those among us who can be led to believe things as absurd as these. An excellent illustration of this sad fact is afforded, incidentally, by a correspondent who asks something about the words “God” and “good,” prompted by a note of mine on the name “Goad” as a form of “God.” Queer “Origins”

This is the almost incredible story he tells. He attended a lecture by an exponent of Christian Science, an American lady, who gave this account of the origin of the name of “God.” She

drew a blackboard sketch of a human face, with projecting ears and two very • round eyes. She showed how the two ears resembled the letters G and D, between which were the two eyes representing O’s. This was supposed to figure God as all-seeing and all-hearing and our ancestors thus got the name of “Good.” But later on the early inhabitants of Britain “learned that man has a spiritual eye—the pineal gland” —so they obliterated one eye from their conception and thus got the name “God.” I cannot say whether any of the audience believed this “explanation,” but. the lecturer herself evidently did. I am tempted to say quite a lot about this piece of information, but must resist temptation and merely ask the reader,' “can you beat it?”

As for the serious question-concern-ing the words. "God” and "good,” the authority whose opinion I should respect most thinks that there is no etymological connection between them, the resemblance ■ being fortuitous. "God” in its most primitive sense seems to have meant "the invoked being,” while "good” signified "belonging to one another, suitable.” My friend further asks whether the German “Gott” is borrowed from the English “God” or vice versa. The answer is that neither language borrowed the word from the other, but the two descend from a common ancestral form and are thus, as the grammarians say, “cognate.” America In Sport

1 am asked if a speaker is in order in using the word “alibi” for “excuse,”, the writer having seen it fairly often' thus used in sporting language, for instance, in.an article or interview by Ilcnden the cricketer, “The public want no alibis.” The answer is that in English “alibi” can only mean “the plea that when an alleged act took place one was elsewhere,” but in America it can also mean “an excuse.*’

It. seems to me a pity that writers of

English should adopt such a stupid - I erm; it is hard to tell whether they do so because they think it smart to use an Americanism, or out of sheer ignorance. Anyhow the thing is as yet not English but an inferior gem from the workshop of the same lapidary as the. tale of Goody-two-eyes, just narrated.

“Natchral”

A correspondent who, sire is kind enough to say, generally enjoys these notes, writes to enter a mild protest against my statement that “natchral," as given by good authorities is the correct pronunciation of “natural.” Her contention- is that it should rather be ••natcheral.” This is a very Interesting point upon which: I am tempted to say more than my space will permit. I have no doubt that my correspondent and I pronounce the word alike —the difference between us being a matter of spelling. It is really impossible to pronounce the “tchr” without some break, however slight, between the two sounds, and the gradations between the shortest and the longest possible interval are infinite. When the interval is at its' shortest spelling is “tchr/’ when at. its longest it is “tcher” or "tcbur x ” 1 Daniel Jones gives the spelling “tchr” (in phonetic symbols, of course) as the normal and records as less usual “tchur” and "lecher” (;with obscure vowel). These facts, while, I think, proving bow little my correspondent and I really disagree, also make clear how poor an instrument spelling is, even phonetic spelling, for the registration of the minuter points in pronunciation. I should say for instance that in the disputed pronunciation here discussed —the interval between the middle consonantal sounds of “natural”—the interval if it could be measured with scientific precision, would be found to vary in different individuals who speak equally well, in different positions in the sentence, e.g. when we saj 1 “it is natural” or “natural history” —and the speech of the same individual under different circumstances, e.g. when lie Is speaking fast or speaking deliberately, and when he is speaking to a child, to an adult friend, or to a public audience. It might even'be different before and after dinner. I am grateful to my correspondent for raising a point which has given me the opportunity to stress these considerations, which are too often disregarded. In making her point about “tchr” my friend incidentally raises another of great interest, for she maintains that we ought “to educate the speaker and elevate the speech,” implying that in saying “natchral” we are evading this duty. In reply I quote once more Fowler’s excellent advice, the gist of which is that “we deserve not praise but censure if *we decline to accept the popular pronunciation of popular words.” We all resent the implied criticism of our own speech by the superior person who says “pictewer” and "leaf-lett,” and “extrayordinary,” and so forth. On the other hand it is i lie duty of every good citizen, not of the grammarian only, to avoid gross vulgarisms like “them fellers” and •comniuneek.” Applying this to the present case, it is not vulgar to say ■•natchral” but it is pedantic and •superior” to say “natewral.” I agree heartily with my critic when she furI her observes how “much pleasanter broadcasts wbuld be if speakers were more careful.” But the members might well retort that, as representatives, it is their duty to speak as their constituents do, and to that retort I must •onfess that I can find no reply which •ould carry conviction in their hearts. ■ '.s correspondence is now closed.

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