Tilt At Australian Accent Draws Protests

Northern Advocate, 12 August 1948, Page 5

Tilt At Australian Accent Draws Protests

MISS N.Z, STARTS SOMETHING

NEW YORK, Wed. (11 a.m.).—Miss New Zealand (Miss Mary Wootton) started something when she had a tilt at the Australian accent in a radio broadcast.

She was appearing on a popular sponsored programme when the announcer asked her how the Australian and New Zealand accents differed She replied by telling the story of Australian schoolboy, whose teacher asked what a bison was. The boy replied: ‘‘A bison is what you wash your fison (face ini". Miss New Zealand said New Zealanders did not distort their vowels like that. Australian war brides listening to the programme indignantly phoned the radio station to protest at this slur on their national speech. Station officials promised callers that they would put Miss Australia (Miss Judy Gainford) on the air to

retaliate after she arrived from London on August 19. The Daily Mirror columnist Sidney Fields devoted a double column display to an interview with Miss Mary Wootton (Miss New Zealand) whom he describes a s “the glamorous brain.” He says she is a “highly articulate and talented young lady, the kind of girl who says to herself, ‘fancy me, Mary Wootton, in New York.’ ” He adds: “It was good meeeting Mary because she taught me something about her own country.” He quotes her as saying that the essential difference between a New Zealander and other people is that “in the big cities of the world when you are knocked down by bus, people stare at you and walk over you, but in New Zealand, they stop to pick you up.”