ENGLISH SPEECH.

Northern Advocate, 18 June 1923, Page 8

ENGLISH SPEECH.

STAGE PRONUNCIATION',

J A suggestion for the holding of an Imperial-Afrierican Conference to establish the best form of English speech —a standard form —and to preserve it in the best possible spelling, was made recently by Professor Ripman in a lecture he gave to the English Association at Manchester, states the "Guardian." They might take as, a basis, he said, the best stage pronunciation. There were actors who were absurd, who ranted and mouthed, but on the whole the best form of speech would probably be found in .the actor. The Professor said the dropping of the "d" in "handkerchief" was a distinct gain. The word was a perfectly sane one, but it was too long. It was jnuch to be desired that we should use "hanky" instead —a word quite good enough. Sensible people preferred "pram" to "perambulator," and "movie" to "cinematograph." The dropping of "t" in "castle" was a manifest gain of a similar kind. So long as there was no ambiguity (as there was not in "castle") there was nothing to be said against it. Those who used a pestle and mortar called the first a "pessel"; but people who did not, and knew it only from literary sources, pronounced the "t." The dropping of "p" in pneumonia was surely perfectly justifiable. We had actually gene so far as to try to pronounce the "n" in kiln, but he had not yet come across the person who tried to pronounce the "n" in autumn.

A little time ago it was quite the proper time to drop your "g's," though Professor Ripman did not think it was o:onc to such an extent now. The flopping of "g" was quite an interesting thing; it seemed to be the normal development in English speech, and would have been universal had it not been for the middle-class love of spelling. That had preserved it, though ;t had been a great struggle. Dialects had rather a difficult time in these days. The practical value of standard speech and the importance attached to it tended to make dialects neglected. In school they were often ignored or actually condemned, largely owing to lack of understanding between standard and dialect. English dialects had suffered too from our spelling, because that spelling was very unsuited to represent dialects.

A Wymlham hen is credited with 1/iying three eggs 011 a recent Sunday, "and, with a rest on Monlay, producing two on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, ant' {wo on Thursday (relates the jlocal "Herald"). Unfortunately the output of the enterprising fowl is not all marketable as about half of her efforts aiv i minus hard shells. I Many things occur in human, experience which are difficult, to explain. Among these are coincidences, which give most strange results. A wellknown company in Dunedin received in its letter-box a fortnight ago, a letter from an Australian company, and attached to the envelope by the mucilage was another envelope addressed to a lady in Sydney containing, presumably, a letter for her. The latter envelope, which had escaped the attention of the postal officials both in Australia and in New Zealand, was returned by the company by letter to the post office in Dunedin, which returned it to Sydney, and received advice from Australia that the wrong-ly-delivered letter had safely reached the addressee. The local post office advised the company to that effect. Now for the coincidence (states the Dunedin "Star"). The envelope from the post office to the company had attached to it (in exactly the same way by the mucilage) another letter from the post office with the address of a Dunedin lady. It is strange that this double form of correspondence on the subject of the previous double correspondence should have also escaped the attention Of tlie Postal Department. One of the staff of the local company made the humorous comment: "It. is to be hoped that this does not indicate that a form of mail and feemail correspondence is growing up."