Words and Phrases.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20476, 30 November 1934, Page 6

Words and Phrases.

“M IN NIE ” writes; Please settle a few months’ quarrel and tell me how to pronounce “ mesdames,” and are they going to recondition the back of the Post Office clock ? “ Mesdames,” in the common Anglicised form, is now may-damns with the stress on the first syllable. Whatever they do with the Post Office clock, it should never be described as conditioning or reconditioning. The word is a barbarism and its absurdity is demonstrated by the fact that the Post Office could never be reconditioned unless it had been first conditioned. Nobody would venture to say when a building or anything else ceased to be conditioned and needed reconditioning. To condition means to place a condition or conditions upon, to limit, restrict or determine by a condition. In one sense it means to test or determine the condition or quality of goods, but conditioning in this sense would not imply a changing but merely an ascertaining of the quality. In last night’s wedding ceremony the Archbishop of Canterbury first used the word troth with the shorter “o ” as in “ cloth,” but the Duke of Kent, repeating it after him, pronounced it to rhyme with “ both.” The Archbishop thereupon followed suit and Princess Marina very sweetly did the same. The Prince’s pronunciation is the commoner and is now almost universally accepted, but the other pronunciation is permissible and is supported by some authorities. It must not be thought from this that the Prince corrected the Archbishop in any way. The first pronunciation came so quickly that many persons, including the bridegroom, who had no doubt conned his responses, might not have noticed it. TOUCHSTONE.