THE VOICE THAT CHARMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18664, 21 March 1924, Page 14

THE VOICE THAT CHARMS.

.'•■•. It is very difficult for 'tis to. hear our own voices or we should probably find how easily our speech might improve! And in any profession a cultivated voice is a necessity, for without it it is impossible to rise-to the top of the ■• tree.' ■ .."" " " ''•'.: Yet ho One will; say to'the would-be 'secretary': " I can't "engage you, I don't

like the way you speak." And yet—why shouldn't -they ?■-.-■ We all of us learn to talk, and it's just as easy to learn it rightly as wrongly. Of course, if a -man or a woman drops their h's everyone notices it at once, but if they get other, funny tricks of pronunciation no. one likes to tell them about that. And the victims themselves have not the faintest notion what is spoiling their career! If you said, "It's your accent," they nine times out of ten would think you were trying to be rude. But that is so silly. The question of accent isn't a question of class. -.'..-, An accent is picked up while we are tiny .'. children and sticks to us, if we let it, to our graves. Scotch people and Irish people ere among the worst sufferers they seldom get rid of every trace, and, though some people think that either is pretty, it still can't be called correct. Any sort of an accent is a handicap in life—so take trouble with vour voice it pays.