CAREFUL USE OF ENGLISH

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19682, 27 December 1933, Page 9

CAREFUL USE OF ENGLISH

LORD BLEDISLOE’S ADVICE. The importance of careful use of the English language in daily conversation was a theme upon which his Excellency the Governor-General (Lord Bledisloe) addressed the girls of Marsden School, Wellington, at the prize-giving on Friday. His Ex ellency stressed the desirability of avoiding the use of exaggerated language or slang. “Among other school subjects you are taught cultured English,’’ said his Excellency to the girls. “To what extent are you using it now, and propose to use it In after life? There is something Vacuous, unintelligent, and disproportionate about the conventional phraseology of so many young women who claim social superiority or fashionable distinction. Such words as ‘amazing,’ ‘marvellous,’ and ’colossal' on the one hand, and ‘awful,’ ‘terrible,’ and ’devastating’ on the other are frequently on their tongues In reference to very ordinary events and still more ordinary individuals, and their constant use tends to breed, through exaggeration, inaccuracy and insincerity in their utterers and lack of conviction in their hearers. Ours is a bautiful language, rich in words and phrases applicable to all the tones and semi-tones, the crescendos, diminuendos, the chords, and arpeggios of human experience. Can we not use it more carefully in our dally conversation? There Is nothing old-fashioned or ‘Early Victorian’ in clinging to the cultural phraseology of the Bible, of Shakespeare, of Sir Walter Scott, or of Edmund Burke. You may say, when inclined to use exaggerated language or slang, ‘Well, other girls do it, and why not we?’ Surely the answer is ‘Because Marsden School is a p’ace of higher education provided for the needs of those who should point the way in the matter of culture and refinement to the less fortunate sections of the population, and the use of such words is a poor tribute to the intellectual equipment with which it has so generously provided you. I should like to see a money box provided in every leading secondary school and an the home of every well-educated family In this Dominion into which a penny would be placed for some charitable object every time that a member of the household used a word of flagrant exaggeration or slang. “Impetuosity of language Is often as unconvincing as its inappropriateness. There is an old traditional prayer which runs, 'Let Divine wisdom guard our lives and teach us how and when to speak and when to be silent.’ Truth coupled with tolerance breeds prudence in word and deed and that reserve force which is indicative of character and which calls ' -'til confidence in the leaders of mankind, especially in times of crisis and adversity. But entire silence is often golden. Truth is sometimes best unspoken. To blurt it out in anger and impetuosity or in vain arrogance may be the height of unwisdom and the negation of that charity which we place first among the Christian virtues.

Urgent information about ironsand j possibilities at Patea has been sought s by an English stainless steel firm from J the Patea Harbour Board. In acknow- j ledging receipt of a sample of Ironsand j previously sent, the firm asked what ] facilities there were at the port for having shipped direct to London 2000 I to 5000 ton lots of ironsand and the route that would be used. The firm i stated that it was proceeding to construct an electrical steel plant at Barking, near London, where it had obtained a supply of electrical power at low rates. The board replied that direct shipment from Patea was not possible and that coastal shipping would have to be used to convey it to Wellington. Tile board wished to meet the firm's j requirements, but desired to kn ew ! what arrangements the firm would * make to meet the cost of procuring j sand and of transport.