G. B. SHAW’S AVOWAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 July 1931, Page 12

G. B. SHAW’S AVOWAL

PIDGIN ENGLISH AS CLASSIC. LONDON, May 17. Mr. Bernard Shaw, in a speech at Letchworth yesterday, declared tnat there was no correct English; we all speak differently. The subject of his address was “Libraries and the English Language,” and he had many amusing things to say about both.

’ incidentally he declared that it was a visit to the. British Museum that made him a Communist. “And,” he added, “I shall live and die a Communist.”

“Grammar,” Mr. Shaw said, “is an abomination, and for the most part superfluous, and English has the advantage of having precious little grammar in it. My own belief is that pidgin English will probably be the classic English of the future. An Englishman says, ‘I am sorry I cannot oblige you’; the Chinaman says, ‘No can,’ and expresses himself perfectly. (Laughter).

“Tho foreigner is always carefully taught how to pronounce the English language, and he comes to these islands where nobody can pronounce it.”

Other nations in competition with English were hampered by grammar, and their languages were terribly inflected.

On the point that there “is no correct English,” Mr. Shaw said he was not sure that the direction would always be on the lines of the language at Oxford and Cambridge. He gave examples of speech from a school he visited in the Isle of Dogs, where the boys said “Oi” when they meant “I,” and pointed out how much any girl would prefer to be proposed to in such broad language rather than the mere affected speech of some people. “The pronunciation of the. future may be the pronunciation of the Isle of Dogs, and then the whole land will be full of music,” said Mr. Shaw.

“Some men, especially politicians,” he went on, “have such a command of language that you are tempted to say that the language has command of them. It is a remarkable thing that although that distinguished author Mr James Joyce has five hundred thousand words in the English language in which to write his books, he spends his time in inventing new words. In some of his latest works he has about 90 per cent, of words you have never seen before.

“If you made me King of England I might fall short in many ways of the ideal, but you would not object to me on the ground that my speech was disgraceful. If you made me Archbishop of Canterbury, I could get away with the talking part. If you made me Lord Chief Justice I could sentence you to death in a way that would do honour to the occasion.” (Laughter). The English language was a collection of noises, and it was estimated that there were only 208 distinct noises. A Somerset farmer was said to get through life with 300 words and a few expletives. (Laughter).

CLIPPING WORDS.

There was a dangerous tendency nowadays to shorten words. When he was young they used the word “modern” but young people to-day had only heard moden or even “mod.” Eventually such words might, drop out of use as meaningless.

“This is very distressing to me,” said Mr. Shaw, “as one of my professional requirements is to have my words spoken on the stage, and presently I shall be able to listen to a play of mjne without being able to understand a word of it." (Laughter). “The politician with a. command of language may get into a political position which really he does not carry guns enough intellectually to qualify himself for. (Hear, hear.) He may make wonderful speeches and be perfectly useless as an administrator.

“One of tho things smashing up our civilisation at the present time is that the politicians who are in charge of the finances of the world do not understand world policy—diplomacy, industrial or real political Rifts. Tliev had the gift of the ‘gab.’ (Laughter)'. You really have to be very careful in following political leaders.. We have three separate words—statesman, orator, and windbag.” (Laughter.) “If wo could have one language for the whole of Europe there would be an enormous multiplication of the powers of the whole body of men to co-oper-ate, and the dreams of Utopians would become comparatively easy.”