AT HOME.

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 3336, 4 September 1917, Page 1

AT HOME.

THE TOWER OF BABEL

OVERHEARD IN THE STRAND

Writes "5.D.." in the London Ex-

press: London in these days is a city of many nations and accents. The drabness of ordinary clothing has disappeared, and the man out of uniform and tabs and badges (unless he is excused by while whiskers) feels uncomfortably conspicuous. Incidents that three years ago would have Idled a topical photographer with excitement pass unnoticed. In the Strand yesterday, for ox-

ample, I saw an Argyll and Sutherland Highlander giving cigarettes to a French Alpinist. They had sonic difficulty in conversing, so they frequently shook hands. A. few yards further along, an A.S.C. ehaffeuso was regarding, with undisguised contempt, two fashionably-dressed women coming out of the Savoy! The new world is an interesting world, anyhow!

the accents of new London are among its most insistent puzzles. There is a thrill in the discovery that no cockney ever spoke such wonderful and picturesque cockney as the Australian soldiers from Sydney. Indeed, I am convinced that stage cockneys were invented by a dramatist from New South Wales.

A long acquaintance with stage American has also led to certain shocks- The American soldiers who came here with General Pershing do not talk in the least like Miss Rose in "The Chorus Lady." I listened very carefully to-two of thorn for half-an-hour the other day, and fhey never said "Gee!" once.

I have heard what T supposed was genuine American twice in London recently. The first time Ibc speaker was. a Canadian lieutenant.. Re Avas full of strange naval phrases, but T found that, he bad been born in Stroathnm and that he only went to Canada in 1013. The other speaker of American was a Transvaal Boer in the South African Contingent. His father had fought against Great Britain in the South African war, and ho told me he had picked up his American accent in Johannesburg!

The Maoris speak admirable English. The only Scotch soldiers who speak like Harry Lauder are in tho London Scottish. Exile always leads to the tender hugging of tradition. You hear the Irish brogue sometimes as one heard it in pre-war days. Irishmen only use the brogue, however, when they think hard. The Irish love to act. and their accent is an effective theatrical property. When they forget about it they speak just like you and I and Maoris and the men from New York. ] Here you arrive at tho law of compensation. Wo have forsaken uniformity of dress to acquire uniformity of accent. At present the soldier's vocabulary is pepnered with strange wordssome pigeon English, some borrowed from "Hindustani. We shall all ho usinn- those words before the war is over. "Blighty" is already _ accented and "na nno" -will be in the next edition of the Oxford Dictionary.