OUR MOTHER TONGUE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22670, 6 March 1937, Page 4 (Supplement)

OUR MOTHER TONGUE

By PROFESSOR ARNOLD WALL

J AM invited to act as referee in a dispute concerning the innocent expression, "he said nothing." one party maintaining that this is "grammatically wrong," and that the correct statement is, "he didn't say anything," the other upholding the expression as it is. I might, of course, dismiss this case as being too trivial to be examined seriously, but that would not be a graceful act on the part of a referee. If the objector to " he said nothing " is right he cannot stop there, for his objection will lie just as valid in nil cases where " nothing " is the object of a transitive verb. He must not say "he saw." " made " or " did nothing. " Nothing." and the corresponding words in other languages, must not be used in this way. if at all; in fact, there must be no such thing. Apparently the purist has a teeling that language, like nature, abhors a vacuum, or ought to do so, nnd this seems to be the only justification for his objection. As a definite ruling is asked for, 1 here solemnly state that the expression "be said nothing is grammatically correct and acquit the prisoner without n stain on his character. " Cross " and its group. These words, which have "o" followed by a sharp consonant "fl." "ss" or "th have been dealt with sonic months ago in this column, but I continue to get queries about, them. Typical examples are " troth." " broth," " moss," " toss," " off " and " cough."

Pronunciations in Question Modern authorities still both the short sound of "o" as in "not" and the long * mud of "aw" in "law" in tiie words of this group, but in the conflict between these two it is plain that the short sound is gaining the day and such pronunciations as "crawss" and "brawth" arc definitely old-fashioned now. ...

The short sound is the older ; in fact, there is little or no trace of the long sound until 1800. it looks as if the challenger were to be shortly declared down and out. " Conjure." 1 am again asked about this rather puzzling word, whose pronunciation varies according to the meaning. When it means " summon up " or " invoke " or " perform conjuring tricks." the stress is on " con," pronounced "cun"; but when it means " charge solemnly " it is stressed on " i"^." The one is like " injure." the other like " abjure." The distinction is traditional end the pronunciations here indicated are given in the dictionaries of the eighteenth century.

Random Notes —No. lxviii.

" Ensemble." I am, as usual, embarrassed and apologetic when I am called upon to give the English pronunciation of a French word containing a nasalised vowel, and this one has two. If we use the conventional "ng" to represent the nasalised sound the s|X'lling of this word results in "angsangble," but few English speakers will take the trouble to pronounce a nasalised "e" in any other way than " ong." as we do in " ongvelope," or " envelope," so that the more usual English sound in this wort! is " ongsongble," and this omits the labial "111" which is usually heard. Jones gives five variants. Personally, 1 regret that this word was ever adopted, as the English expression, " general effect," is quite good enough in nearly all contexts. It is, 1 think, a great mistake to sacrifice much for the sake of saving a word, for to find a single word to express every possible idea is an impossible ideal and we should not allow the telegram to tyrannise over our speech. Anglicised French Words " Beige." This is not so difficult to represent, but it does offer a small problem. The English pronunciation may be given as " baizh," the "zh" standing for the sound which is heard in " measure " and in imperfectlyAnglicised French words like " massage." We have no proper symbol for this sound in our ordinary spelling and the form "zh" is used as being the corresponding "flat" or "voiced" sound to the "sharp" or "voiceless" sli.

" Bourgeoisie." This word offers still another problem in the spelling of English French. The word is really still French and i« likely to remain so because of its distinctively French form. In French, then, the "on" has the value of our "oo" in "poor"; the "r" is trilled or rather growled; the "g" has the value of "zh" as above described; the "oi" is "wall," the "s" is and the "ie" is approximately our "ee." The resultant spelling is " boorzlnvahzoe." a dreadful sight. The Knglishman, in attempting to pronounce the word as French, mutilates it almost beyond belief. The "on" becomes "aw"; the "r" disappears; the "oi" becomes "waw," as in his too frequent "oh revwaw." It will be observed, bv the way, that the French spelling is nearly as unphonotic as our own. As this innocent word has acquired a highly debatable) political meaning, and is much used by Communist orators, it has to suffer this mutilation very frequently and it has my profound sympathy. " Contre-temps." Here we are again in the presence of the nasalised vowels and faced with the familiar difficulties. Again we use the "ng" and perpetritte the indication, " eontretang." the last syllable being usually " tong." And, thank goodness, this is the last of the batch.