EVERY MAN'S BOGY IS PRONUNCIATION

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 60, 8 September 1934, Page 25

EVERY MAN'S BOGY IS PRONUNCIATION

"Xo man dare pronounce a word of three or more syllables unless and until he has heard someone else pronounce it first." This statement, so encouraging to fpreign students of English, wast made by Mr. A. Lloyd James, secretary of the 8.8.C. Advisory Committee on "Spoken English," in a lecture at the vacation course (says the "Manchester Guardian"). He said that when the word "congener" came up at the 8.8. G. Committee, Sir Eobert Bridges and Mr. Shaw said that they had never used the word. After some discussion they agreed the second syllable should be accented, but Mr. James pointed out that,no reputable dictionary supported them. The dictionaries accented the first syllable. "Sir Bobert and Mr. Shaw said, 'Dear me; then that' must be right.' " Mr. James showed that written language had possessed such enormous prestige that for centuries we had been under, the domination of printed language, but now millions of people relied for information on the spoken word. , ,'.•'■ "If speech education was necessary twenty years ago, it is ten thousand times more necessary today," he said. "Even our universities have so concentrated on education of visual language that I am constantly faced by brilliant I voung men from Oxford and Cambridge | who cannot iead English prose aloud before a microphone with 1 : intelligence.' ' "Probably i'ntore nonsense is talked I

about standard English pronunciation than about any other aspect of the speech question. There is no such thing as standard English, but there are many standards of speech! Speech should be intelligible but intelligibility does not depend to the extent you would suppose on sounds. The London telephone cannot make any difference between the sound of 's' and 'f,' nor can gramophones or any loud-speakers, but the distinction is not necessary, for you- hear by context." He had an idea that one of the determining factors in intelligibility was rhythm, and that in fact it governed the whole situation. "Within limits you can do what you like with words, but if rhythm is wrong you will be unintelligible. The best example of English spoken on bad rhythm comes from French students. Intonation is another factor. Tliero is a national way of performing the act Of speech. Intonation probably causes more t international ill will than anything' else. English people think the French are excitable. If they spoke in the way tho French frequently do it would be under stress' -of emotion, so they imagine tho French speaker is suffering from that emotion. Masses of American' student's are regularly offended by the common casual British way of saying '/Thank you,' which suggests terseness and rudeness and is hot associated: with the feeling they want it to express."