PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 61, 23 August 1940, Page 5

PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH

Sir,-In a recent issue of The Listener a whole page was devoted to Professor Arnold Wall’s discussion of the pronunciation of the word "allies." Anybody may now be pardoned for mispronouncing English words, for it seems to me that if one lived to be as old as Methuselah one would still then be deficient. in his pronunciation of English, for there do not seem to be any set rules to guide the learner so that the pronunciation of each word has to be learned separately. The task is endless, and, alas, hopeless, and life is far too short to be. spent in mastering the pronunciation. of several thousands of words. Take for an example the words bone, gone, and done: although they look alike they are pronounced differently. Even the well-instructed announcers of the BBC, according to Professor Wall, do not agree on the of such a common word as "allies." I derive some comfort from the disagreement and take courage. I have been pulled up by Europeans for mispronouncing the term de luxe. They say it should be pronounced like de looks. How was I to know, for all my friends pronounce it in the way I did?

A well-known character on the roads in our district has always been called Polly de Lucks and never Polly de ‘Looks. If he is-Polly, by the way, is a "he" in this case-Polly de Looks then it will be necessary to have another christening ceremony, According to Professor Wall’s own statement, long usage by a majority of people of a mispronunciation makes it correct in time, so I think I'll stick to my old friend Polly de Lucks. By the way, if I remember correctly, it was and it is Professor Wall himself who condemned and condemns the de lucks pronunciation. There we are! I don’t, however, find de Iuxe in my English dictionary, so it must be an importation. If Professor Wall could only devise some scheme for a simple and common-sense method of pronouncing English and its importations, I am sure the world would be very much obliged to him, and it would be a happier place in which to live. We have such a scheme in Maori, and yet every day we hear such place names as Taranaki and Waikato mispronounced by Europeans. It was my intention to give a few simple hints on Maori pronunciation, but as this letter is already too long I shall have to put it off for another time,

R. T.

KOHERE

(East Cape).

(We shall be glad to have our correspondent’s simple hints on Maori pronunciation. In the meantime he will obtain a small book containing Professor Wall’s simple hints on English pronunciation if he writes to the publishers, Messrs, Whitcombe and Tombs.-Ed.). j ;