OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 72, 17 December 1938, Page 9

OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Random Notes

• [By Professor Arnold Wall.] During a recent stay in Australia I was told by more than one person that in the Australian State schools the teachers instruct their pupils to pronounce the name of the letter II as "haitch.” I cannot say whether the same thing happens in New Zealand, but certainly I have never heard of it. An English man of -learning, who was brought up in Lancashire, tells me that, ••haitch” is (or was) also prescribed there.

The question is whether there is any tradition behind Mr. Haitch or any warrant fop his appearance in Australia or elsewhere. I know of none, and can only guess that this pronunciation is due to an exaggerated and morbid conscientiousness in respect of the vulgar dropping of 11. I have, indeed, heard of isolated occurrences in New Zealand, as when, for instance, a woman friend of. mine asked another woman what her name was, and as she was uncertain about it asked how it was spelt; the reply was: haitch, hay, hah, hen, hee, hess, hess. Here' Mr. Haitch stands at the head of a procession, each member of which is garlanded like himself, but in the Australian version of the alphabet he stands alone in his glory.

(Weekend Radio Programmes appear on page 10 of the second section.)

The Ewe Lamb

An author, male, having described himself in his MS. as ‘‘his mother’s one ewe lamb,” a friend, female, told him that this was wrong and that only a daughter could properly be so described. Then another person told the •critic that SHE was wrong, and I am appealed to. The dictionary definition of “ewe lamb” in this sense is “one’s most cherished possession,” so that the term may be used legitimately, irrespective of the gender of the person or thing concerned, and the author was quite within his rights in so describing himself. What has happened here is that the literal and original meaning has been so greatly widened that the idea of gender has been, as it were, submerged, and may be disregarded. The reference, of course, is to 2 Sam. xii. I cannot recall any exact parallel to this very natural development, but there is something rather like it in the Australian (and hence New Zealand) slang “a cow” or “a fair cow” which is defined in Partridge’s Dictionary of Unconventional English to mean, inter alia, “a (very) despicable person or an objectionable one,” and I should think that this term is very rarely or never used of a woman. One also thinks of the playful way in which a well-educated eighteenth century Scotchman would call his (male) friend “ye auld bitch.” But these are not real parallels to the “ewe lamb,” being only examples of jocose “humour.” “Infest” And. “Infect”

I am asked whether it is correct to sjx>ak of sheep being “infested with worms”; the inquirer thinks it should be “infected.” No, "infested” is quite correct in this phrase. The definition of “infest” (of vermin, pirates, diseases) is “haunt,, swarm in or about (place).” * This perfectly suits the context, whereas “infect,” though it could be used, is less suitable, its being “till with noxious corruption or germs.” “Infest with worms, infect with germs,” that is the slogan. “Obliviate.” A critical reader finds this word (?) in a letter to a newspaper and challenges it. He has every right to do so for it is a mere monstrosity. “What a Word!”, as A.P.H. says. The same critic notices that another writer, presumably in a letter to an editor, speaks of a certain personage “interviewing himself a- great deal” and asks whether this is a proper use of the verb “to interview.” He thinks not, “unless the intention is ironical, which is not likely.” The expression is, in my opinion, quite legitimate, and the intention obviously ironical, but this is not to say that it is “in good taste.” “No Merits And Two Faults” To make a long story short, a man who was asked'to furnish a “bi-weekly report” sent his report every two weeks ’ instead of twice a week. He was taken •to task for not knowing that “biweekly” means “twice a week.” It is true that “twice a week” is the usual meaning, but the fact is, regrettably, that the term has been in use in the other sense too. Fowler, in his article on the prefix “bi-” in his English Usage remarks that it gives “words that have no merits and two faults.” The fact that they are “unsightly hybrids” we may pass over, for many such hybrids have “made good” in Our Mother Tongue. But the fact that “bi-hourly,” “biweekly,” “bi-monthly,” and “bi-yearly” are ambiguous must claim attention. According to the examples quoted in the Oxford Dictionary “bi-weekly” means “two-weekly,” i.e. once a fortnight, and “half-weekly,” i.e. twice a week; and the confusion is the same in the case of “bi-monthly.” “Under these desperate circumstances,” says Fowler, “we can never know where we are,” and he pleads for the complete abolition of the forms with “bi-” and the substitution of terms with “two”and “half”—which cannot be misunderstood. This would not, of course, apply to the legitimate Latin words like “biennial” and “bimestrial,” upon which tlie hybrids were modelled. While heartily agreeing with Fowler in principle I do not see the slightest chance of a death-warrant for “biweekly” or “bi-monthly”; I fear they are perennials. “Shore” or “Sheared?”

I am asked which is the correct past tense form of the verb “to shear”; is it “shore” Or “sheared?” The inquirer thinks that shearers generally use “shore.” It is unfortunately the fact that both are in use, and both allowed. The verb was originally “strong” and though “shore” does not properly represent the original strong past tense form it seems to me a pity that "sheared” ever came into use. Apparently “sheared.” the “weak” form, is usual in all ordinary senses, including the shearing of sheep, while “shore” tends to be used as a poetic or archaic form: nevertheless. T think that my correspondent is right in saying that “shore” is usual on New Zealand boards. This regrettable hesitancy between the weak and the strong forms of verbs which were originally strong only is not confined to the verb "to shear.” Both “thrive” and "strive” are similarly afflicted, and you are apparently at liberty to write either “strove” or “strived,” “throve” 'or "thrived” with the example of good writers to back you in every case. As for me, I hate “strived” and “thrived” and won't use them.