TRUE POETIC DICTION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 14 January 1924, Page 2

TRUE POETIC DICTION.

DANGERS TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

Is it just to imply that the dangers which many seem to feel threaten the English language are altogether modern t asks Henry Van Dyke in the Yale Review. Indeed, they have been tie- [ precated since tho tinvo when Thomas' Fuller noted the "Chaucerisms" in Spenser, and Tho Spectator regarded such words as "sham" and "mob" as common cant. Tho dictionaries have swollen enormously. Contrariwise the store of word« actually used by some of tho new novelists and the new poets i look pitifully meagre whe-n we remember that Shakespeare employed 15,000, and Milton 8000 in his poems. But tho real perils of tho English language to-day, in my judgment, ho continues, lie not in expansion or in contraction of vocabulary; but more in a certain noisy carelessness or sloppy indifference; a failure to recognise that thought is desirablo not only before a Hpeech but also in speech; an apparent ; numbness to the finer sense of words,) For example, a distinguished historian writes that he proposes to "assess" a i certain character, when he has v no intention of taxing it, but simply means to estimate its worth. A popular ; novelist makes his hero leave a room \ "precipitously," 'yet without throwing ! him down the stairs or letting him leap from a window. An ardent advertiser I proclaims the "slogan" of his readymade clothing, although his purposes • are all pacific. J These, you may say, are only slips of ' the pen, mistakes which are insignifi- ! cant and may be readily pardoned. j But when the carelessness which they ! show becomes habitual and general, when it pervades not only ordinary con- ; versation but also many highly praised j books of prose and verß©, we may wellj ' ask ourselves whether this is not rather a disquieting symptom. . . . Lot us reluctantly admit, then, that perhaps this is a time when somebody should "do something for English." i What is it that ought to be done? • It is in this line that I venture to offer my small contribution. I have

no new philosophy of language, no new: | system of doctrine about poetry, to i present. AH that I want to do is to 1 direct consideration to a certain element, or quality, of language which i« too often overlooked,"and to suggest that this consideration may throw some light upon the important and vexed question of poetic diction. I hold, therefore, that good poetry is of great value to a people. It not only begets good prose, but also nour- , ishes and keeps alive those sentiments of "admiration, hope, and love' by which we live. And it offers for their communication from mind to mind, from generation to generation, wonderfully' condensed and lasting and beautiful forms. These, it seems to me, are woven of the words that belong to the wedding garment of poetry. Hey are the true poetic diction