SPOKEN ENGLISH

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3602, 22 February 1927, Page 3

SPOKEN ENGLISH

English was now a compulsory language in'the schools of many countries, said Professor James Shelley, speaking at Christchurch,' and it behoved Englishmen, therefore, to use the language well (reports the “Press”). There was no dialect in New Zealand, but the fault, in New Zealand’s English was general slovenliness. There was nothing wrong with dialect, which often would be as full of expression as standard English, but there was a heed to maintain a standard of punctuation. There was, as yet, no standard of pronunciation, but this might possibly come through the use of wireless. A committee of school teachers had been set up for the purpose of making a standard English pronunciation for radio announcing and this might have the effect of creating a standard. A language properly spoken always meant more than a language that was not properly spoken, for in the correct speech much more expression could be obtained. Adequate substitutes for national tongues could never be found in Esperanto of other made up languages because in taking the greatest common factors of languages, the result was robbed of effectiveness, Languages had to be taught in the schools to retain their expression, and it was necessary to start the young mind with sound images.