“Taranaki Central Press” SATURDAY, MAY 23, 1937. DIFFERENCES IN SPEECH

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 440, 22 May 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” SATURDAY, MAY 23, 1937. DIFFERENCES IN SPEECH

There is nothing that pulls classes of people asunder, says Professor Shelley, Director of Broadcasting, so much as differences in pronunciation. Nothing could be truer. Persons who mispronounce a very simple word place themselves in a position of inferiority to all who know better, and on a rising scale this self-classification goes know better, and on a rising scale this self-classification goes on into the higher grades of intellectual society, and even overreaches itself in the pedantry of those who resort to archaic pronunciation to impress the unlearned. , Professor Shelley has adopted a means of standardising pronunciation over the air, and he hopes that standardised speech will follow, or rather that New Zealand will preserve its good reputation for having none of the distinctions of speech that separate the different classes of society in England. This is a highly commendable objective, especially in a young country in which social gradations are created by culture and refinement, and not by birth or the possession of wealth. Good English is the best sort of passport to good society, especially in England, where an English writer recently laid it down that the only accent condoned in the best London society, was a cultured Scottish or Irish accent, and not very strohg at that. New Zealanders have a unique opportunity, because of theit insularity, and the purity of their British stock, to stand foremost in the world as exponents of the King’s English, if, indeed, they do not already measure up to that standard in the mass. They have no dialects or local variations of speech from one end of the country to the other. When they visit England, they may carry with them a slight overseas openness in their vowels sounds, but by the cultural test of speech they would hold their place in any grade of society, and it may be that this is one of the reasons why they get on so well with the English people.. The inheritance is a rich one, and Professor Shelley, himself an Englishman, deserves the thanks of New Zealand for his effort to preserve it.