Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 1911. "DAHN TAHN."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10130, 5 January 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 1911. "DAHN TAHN."

An orderly-minded person named [■Hubert Bland'has. said ./that one should no more attract attention by one's manners than , by one's necktie or by one's thumb-nails. Which is as much as to say that on the one hand one should not "be a pig," and. on the other should not "put on. side." But the latter fault is very manifest among New Zealander s,. and,especially young! New Zealantiers, says a recent visitor to the Dominion, -when giving some impressions to a Press inter- 1 viewer. The visitor went,on to say that the girl who desires to be thought smart often cultivates one particular form of "side" which is highly, .oijjectionafblejto; ever* Efr, best J friends -she iseekf ~ distinction in affected speech. Taere is no doiibfc that in many cases the girl ia not to blame. .Indifferent teachers can

readily be found who abuse and mutilate the good language that they, above all people, should keep undefiled. To refer to the commonest example, there is no excuse . in the wide world for the mut:\ition of the broad i sound into ay, ,?.a often heard when a girl bids her friend "Goodnate," nor for the inordinate rounding of the vowels of "down town" so that the word sounds perilously near "dalin tahn." It is impossible to refer to the many ways in which the so-called -cultured accent." departs from a fair interpretation of the written word; but one recognises that they are not only numerous but awful when one mee -j E:*aeone whose rapid and affected speech is almost beyond understanding. It is obvious for anyone but a victim of the habit to see that this affectation has. no reasonable excuse for existence, and it is notable that no person of any note as a public speaker, and very few; who have had a good education, -show-any trace of it. As -a matter of fact,: it is dro to a regrettable tendency among a certain class of people, both colonial and English, to ape what they,imagine are the ways of the aristocracy. Fancying this silly morle of speech is a hall-mark' of birt';,'their snobbishness leads them to adopt it. -That it ; makes 'them.iiidiculou's.jmait:;. 1 them :' /'•-' ';.'./::'t ;