PURITY OF SPEECH.

Evening Star, Issue 10401, 24 August 1897, Page 4

PURITY OF SPEECH.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —An ambassador once spoke of our charming English women as follows;—“I think their voices are the last echo of the defunct Garden of Eden and the precursor of the angelic songs of paradise.” Could he say the same of ourselves, including both genders ? Trickling whispers meander from our educational compounds from time to time which lead us to believe our enunciation does not receive that attention many could wish. Is this owing to the multifarious subjects necessary to our syllabus of pate de fois gras instruction ; or is it climatic, not alone in New Zealand, bat also Australia ? Or is it owing to the great pace of modern life, thus producing organic changes in the vocal organs, as well as the worry and unrest of modern life, resulting in the great harvest of insanity and suicide ? One often wonders why more attention cannot be given to articulation. A foreigner once partitioned the world as follows: Englishmen (one would prefer the word Britishers), Americans, and foreigners. Now, evolutionary development is certainly in favor of AngloSaxon being the universal language. Why cannot we have it pure and unadulterated ? How many who write B.A. and M.A. after their names drop their “ h’s ” and cut off the “ ing’s ” when speaking. Do our youngsters know the silent h’s, in contradistinction to the aspirates? How many of them forget to sound their vowels with a full emission of breath say pronouncing “duty” as “ dooty.” Then, again, you hear the vowel “a” often pronounced ‘'ah.” Surely we should have some fixed datum line established by those who are entrusted with educational matters, as it is lamentably painful to listen to many of our young people who pride themselves with knowledge not knowing how to give us the benefit of it in decent Queen’s English, Many may think, in this terrific age of mental development, that purity of speech is only of secondary importance, but surely it is as much, artistic as painting or music, and adds to the poetic charms [of both pathos and bathos equally with the former. Many think, again, that this elocution is not necessary; but what a poetic charm comes over one when the inflections and modulations are given, in contradistinction to the wretched gabble so often heard both when reading in private and orating in the pulpit or on the platform. We used to have a tent piece ‘The First and Last Dinner,’ from Professor Newman’s ‘ System of Rhetoric’—which the senior boys had to read (and most difficult it was and is to accompish), and which may commend itself to those aspiring to speak both in public as well as at the fireside or in drawing rooms. To listen to a professor or schoolmaster, inspired with pathos, drilling this into the minds of his class, and they repeating sentence by sentence after hiip, is an elegant treat not hastily forgotten.—l am, etc., Pater. Dunedin, August 21.