"VULGAR IS AS VULGAR DOES"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 74, 22 November 1940, Page 4

"VULGAR IS AS VULGAR DOES"

Sir,-In your issue of November 1, under the above heading, there appeared a letter which, though ostensibly designed to impugn my journalistic ability, must be regarded as’ an actual compliment. I arrive at this conclusion because the writer of that letter, Mr. Joseph C. McEvoy, of Dunedin, presumably unable to answer my arguments against certain trends in Modern Music, but determined at all costs to find fault with me, falls back upon the jejune expedient of assailing my prose style. Now let us see how he is hoist with his own petard. In accusing me of descending to "vulgarity and illiteracy" when I occasionally employ the vernacular, he says that I have no justification for being "unethical" in my prose. This illustrates the correspondent’s ignorance of English, for, as all educated persons know, the words "ethics" and "ethical" relate solely to the science of morals, and have nothing to do with the shortcomings of literary style. So, perhaps, Mr. McEvoy, when again he essays -as it wete-a McEvoy-lent attack upon me, would do well first to safeguard his lines of communication.

Regarding his indictment: I am charged with using, writing, or otherwise uttering, divers grave violations of the speech or language of our sovereign lord the King-to wit, viz.» i.e., that is to say-(1) "Sez you!"; (2) "Oh yeah!"; (3) "I never said no sich thing!"; (4) "Lady, you done me wrong!"; (5) " etc." To the first count, Mr. Editor, I plead guilty, but beg for leniency on two grounds-(a) That "Sez you!" is a pithy, succinct, convenient and generally accepted term of jocular derision; (b) That I inadvertently acquired the phrase by involuntary and subconscious aural absorption. Sez me! I return pleas of not guilty to counts (2) and (3), my defence being that they are ascertainable quotations from the classics. "I never said no sich thing " was a favourite retort of the notorious Mrs. Sairey Gamp, as all well-read people are aware. Not so widely known, perhaps, is the fact that Charles Dickens was also the probable originator of

"Oh yeah!" If I remember rightly, it occurs somewhere in his " American Notes." I haven’t seen the text for years, so cannot vouch for chapter and verse; but the passage struck me forcibly when I read it, and, as far as I recollect, it ran like this: "Every traveller on American railways talks to you, or to anybody else who hits his fancy. If you are an Englishman he expects that the railroad is pretty much like a British railroad. If you deny this, and enumerate the points of differences, he says ‘Oh yeah?’ (interrogatively) to each. Then he guesses that British trains don’t travel so fast, and when you reply that they go faster he again says ‘Oh yeah?’ (still interrogatively), and evidently doesn’t believe you. After a long pause, he may remark that Yankees are reckoned to be considerable of a go-ahead people, too-upon which you say ‘Oh yeah!’"-and so on. For similar reasons I plead not guilty to count (4), where obviously I was citing a more modern classic, namely, a film entitled "She Done Him Wrong." Now, Mr. Editor, we come to the fifth charge in the indictment, and I submit that it is the most serious of all-viz., " etc."; the implication being that the rest of my " vulgarities and illiteracies" are so many that the complainant cannot specify them, There is here, Sir, more than a hint of " malice prepense"; but, as I have had previous experience of newspaper controversy with Mr. McEvoy, his innuendo does not surprise me. In conclusion, I must add that in estimating the number of my "admirers" at 100,000, the correspondent surely makes an over-statement. Without knowing the exact figures I scarcely think they total more than 99,999+~excluding, of course, Mr. Joseph

C. McEvoy.

L.D.

AUSTIN

(Wellington).