AMERICAN TWANG.
SYDNEY, July 14. Tho fact that Sydney is quickly becoming Americanised, and is to-day, in its outlook and temperament, 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 tho twang of those who live under the Stars and Stripes. Members of the big American community in Sydney have not entered th© lists, l>ut they have no doubt been vastly entertained. One correspondent, who seems to have started all the pother, asserted that the pilgrim fathers took the American twang across with them from Devonshire, but when a woman of Devon arose in all her wrath, he qualified it by saying, “via Devon.” The fair Devonian then put the blame upon the thousands of convicts, the overflow of London’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, a© 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 wore sent for the term of their natural life. Although the American twang is quickly gathering strength in Sydney, its citizens have enough troubles of their own without worrying very much about the problems of another country.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 3828, 26 July 1927, Page 76
Word Count
318AMERICAN TWANG. Otago Witness, Issue 3828, 26 July 1927, Page 76
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