THE AMERICAN ACCENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19698, 26 July 1927, Page 9

THE AMERICAN ACCENT.

A QUESTION OF ORIGIN.

A SYDNEY CONTROVERSY«

[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] SYDNEY, July 14. The fact that Sydney is quickly becoming Americanised, and is to-day, in its outlook and tempewnnent, the most American of all the Australian cities, is no doubt partly responsible for a piquant controversy in the open columns of one of the newspapers as to the origin of the twang of those who live under the Stars and Stripes. Members of the big American community in Sydney have not entered the lists, but they have no doubt been vastly entertained. One correspondent, who seems to have started all the pother, asserted thai the Pilgrim Fathers took tho American twang across with -them from Devonshire, bat when a woman of Devon arose in all her wrath, he qualified it by saying, " via Devon." The fair Devonian then put 1 the blame upon the thousands of convicts, the overflow of Lbndon's crowded gaols, who were transported to America before the War of Independence. This was an aspect of the controversy which was , quite cheering to Australians, as it revealed a phase of history rarely mentioned in history books, save those dealing with a grim page of Australian history. Australia was under the impression that it was the only unfortunate country which had convicts foisted upon it. The Devonian points out what is probably not known to one in a hundred Americans to-day: that before the War of Independence many thousands of English convicts; were transported to America. She blames them for the twang. Precisely who was responsible for the genesis of the twang has not yet emerged from the battle of words, but it is nice to know, at all events, that Australia is not the only country to. which convicts were sent "for the term of their natural life." Although the American twang is quickly gathering strength in Sydney, its citizens have enough troubles of j their own without worrying very much about the problems of another country;