THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH

Evening Star, Issue 19272, 10 June 1926, Page 9

THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH

DEBATE BETWEEN CRITIC AND ACTOR A debate on the pronunciation of English was held between Mr St. John Ervino and Mi Nigol Playfair at the London School of Economics recently. The debate had been organised in aid of King Edwa-d’s Hospital Fund for London. The best people of England, said Mr Ervine, and especially the young ones, talked in a “ vile Cockney voice.’ This Cockney voice, was leaving the purlieus of Walworth and going to the purlieus of Mayfair—Shepherd’s Market. (Laughter.) Jt was becoming increasingly common for members of theatre audiences and dramatic critics to complain that actors and actresses, again especially the young ones, were a (footing the “ Oxford voice.” It was actually only too true that this voice did belong to the people of Oxford. These people could not ask you to dinnor—they asked you to “ dinnah.” (Laughter.) They did not say “culture ” —they said “ culchnh.” When they wanted to say “ Oh, no,” they actually said “ 0, noo ” or even “ Ow now.” (Laughter.) This way of speaking had got into the church and on to the stage, and people wore steadily becoming inarticulate. Nowadays, when one listened to a clergyman preaching or reading the service, nine times out of ten one could not hear what he was saying. As regards the theatre, many people, instead of taking opera glasses with them, took ear trumpets. (Laughter.) Mr Nigel Playfair, in reply, said that ho had two main principles on which he was relying to counter the arguments advanced by Mr St. John Ervine. The first was that the English language was in many cases not pronounced as it was spelt; the second principle was that the understanding of English was guided by two things—convention, determined by good taste, and context. For instance, even Mr St. John Ervine would not maintain that “ Cholmondoloy ” should be pronounced as it was spelt, and more than he would like his own name to bo pronounced as “ Saint John Irvyne.” (Laughter.) Then, again, when Mr Ervine said that there was no standard of English pronunciation, he was talking nonsense. The standard was set in our national theatres and national colleges of correct pronunciation, the headquarters of which were in London, the centre of the .British Empire. Mr St. John Ervine had at different times, Mr Playfair continued, been sarcastic about the accents cultivated at Eton, Harrow, and Oxford. It might bo truo that in all those places you could lind odd cases of persons who, although they had been well educated in other respects, were deficient in good speaking voices. But there was generally as high a standard of pronunciation there as anywhere in the Empire. Miss Irene Vanbrugh, who was in the chair, said that in her opinion the church and the stage were the two places where the English language should bo vert beautifully and clearly spoken. It was difficult, she kne;v, for certain young actors and actresses who had to portray modern characters of a certain type to speak otherwise than in the new fashion. But there were certain actresses who thought that unless they adopted the new style or speech they would not bo considered “.smart.” *A good actress should not mind whether she was smart or not, so long as she did her duty to the beautifin language which she was allowed to speak.