PUTTING OUR OWN HOUSE IN ORDER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21853, 25 October 1945, Page 4

PUTTING OUR OWN HOUSE IN ORDER

J[N discussing the quality of the literature released on the New Zealand market the Hawke’s Bay Education Board rc-intro-duccd an old subject hut nevertheless one which, provided there is a reasonable chance of having something done about it in official quarters, merits still another thrashing. The percentage of trash for sale in New Zealand is no greater than in other countries; probably it is less than in most parts of the Empire flooded by American “pulp” periodicals. Yet there is no reason why a stricter censorship by a Government-appointed authority should not he instituted —if only for the purpose of keeping a check on the type of reading likely to fall into the hands of juveniles. One neat point made by members of the Hawke’s Bay Education Board was embodied in the comment on a letter received from the New Zealand Publishers’ Association expressing concern at the dumping of overseas magazines and other literature on the New Zealand market, much of which was charged with being of the salacious, gangster and sexual type. A riposte came in the form of a reminder that, although the board was in agreement with the letter, the New Zealand publishers had a need to put their own house in order first. If it is true that samples of New Zealand publications handed round among members could justly he described as “filth,” then the discussion by the hoard took a very proper course. This matter of putting our own house in order concerns other subjects besides literature. The speech of New Zealand children, for example, is becoming slovenly. Lip-laziness and nasal intonations arc in evidence and much of our slang (some slang can be expressive) is quite pointless. A member of the Hawke’s Bay Education Board ventilated a popular grouch among New Zealand adults when he objected to our children copying the Americans by exclaiming, “Oh yeah?” “Yep” and “Attaboy.” Yet how many people, educationists or parents, have made any serious attempt to eradicate from our own vocabulary the stupidity of saying “Hooray” (often pronounced “Hoorye”) for “Good-bye”? What “Hooray” actually means in the sense in which it is so commonly used in this country - is a mystery. It could, of course, convey the meaning, “Glad to see the last of you.” But surely even our proverbial outspokenness would not carry us so far beyond the hounds of decorum as that. Correction of home speech and vocabulary and censorship of our own publications before we start blaming other nations for infecting us with their faults and weaknesses would be a wise course to adopt in the future.