Woman’s Lost Art.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue XVI, 15 October 1904, Page 64

Woman’s Lost Art.

FEMININE CRITICS DEPLORE THE LOSS OF THE SWEET AND SILVERY VOICE. if we are to attempt any importance to feminine critics, the sweet and silvery female voice is a thing of the past. “Listen to the so-called conversation in any crowded assembly, and what do we find it amounts to?” asks a writer iu a leading ladies’ journal. And she replies: "A few set phrases shot from our larynxes in a series of shrieks. " ITie female voice is becoming like that of a parrot; we are abbreviating our words so as to reduce them to the most easily emitted sounds, and, in short, we are coming by sure and not altogether slow degrees to bark at each other. "If only women would take as much trouble about their speech as they do about their looks,” says another ladies’ paper, “its progress towards barking could yet be arrested.” No one has ever heard a parrot bark, but if the metaphor is a little mixed, it is obvious that the writer intends to level the serious charge against the modern woman that her speech is rapidly degenerating. She means to imply, in fact, that the sweetness of a woman's voice has given way to a piercing, jerky shriek of almost unintelligible slang. "This jerkiness,” declared Mr Charles Seymour, an expert in voice culture and elocution, “is technically known as •shock to the glottis.’ It is very easily explained. Suppose two of your adjoining lingers to be the lips of the vocal chords. When the air is sent very rapidly through the wind-pipe it causes the lips to come together too suddenly, thus producing a kind of barking utterance. “It is not correct to say that this style of speech is becoming more common than it was. In my opinion, we notice it more because our ears are becoming much more relined and sensitive, while the people generally are better educated. The average person who never noticed these th.ngs before does -o now. "As the result of over eleven years' experience in elocutionary work, my pupils having included a number of ladies, 1 am convinced that people are now asking for more sweetness in the tone of the voice. This has always been my object in giving elocutionary training to girls. It is no easy matter, however, as to secure refinement of tone without affectation you have always to remember that the mind must first act upon the voice. "When a great singer smiles as she is singing it is not merely a mannerism or affectation. It is because she knows that only when in a joyful frame of mind can she impart the necessary happy ring to her voice. That pleasant expression absolutely affects her voice. "It is the same with the speaker as with the singer, and to obtain a really sweet-toned manner of speaking a smiling face is a necessary accompaniment.”

Though Mr. Seymour would not admit that the feminine voice was deteriorating, he was loth to confess that the use of slang words among women was be coming more common. “I put it down,” he said, "largely to the fact that we are admirers of the American style, though 1 think it may also be that we have less time to talk now, and so need a more expressive vocabulary. It takes too long for the busy society lady to express herself in old English, so she is introducing new words, first known as slang, whieh afterwards become incorporated in the dictionaries. "Why,” he said, pointing to a huge volume lying on his desk, “that is the very latest dictionary published, and 1 find that such a word as 'bamboozle’ is now allowed to be good English. A few years ago it would have been regarded as unmitigated slang.” There is, in fact, general agreement as to the justice of the feminine critic’s accusation regarding the use of slang by

her fellow women. A walk down any crowded thoroughfare in the West End will prove it. One of two smartlydressed ladies in Regent-street was heard saying that she would "mooch around outside” while the other went in to get a few yards of chiffon. The writer of this article also happened to witness a homely little scene in Hyde Park of which a baby in a perambulator was the centre of interest. “What a little ripper!” remarked a young lady to the mother of the child, "darling” evidently being insufficiently expressive. And when she had finished her sister buried her head in the perambulator. “Oh, you little dinky pinky child,” she said, and pointing to its almost hairless little head, “Has urns got a little bittums off the toppums?” Such phrases may be expressive, and suit the purpose better than a long and laudatory speech, but they are certainly not English. In regard to the introdmti.il of American slang words into the English vocabulary, it will hardly be credited, but there are cases where Englidi ladies and gentlemen have been known to go over to the United States simply to acquire Yankee slang and a twang. Now that so many of the English nobility have married American wives there is quite a rage in society circles fi r people v. ho have acquired the Transatlantic mode of speaking to perfection. The mistress of a large ladie s’ school declared that rigorous steps had now to be taken to suppress the use of slang among her pupils. “I put its growing use down to the bad influence of their brothers in holiday time,” she said. “At the beginning of the term it is always more noticeable. If a girl is too lazy to do a thing now she ejaculates, ‘What a fag!’ while such expressions as ‘Hang it!’ are frequently heard. These expressions would have sent a thrill of horror through our grandmothers.”