NEW WORLDS, NEW WORDS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 229, 12 November 1943, Page 11

NEW WORLDS, NEW WORDS

(Written for "The Listener" by

C. J.

L.

T is a strange thing that, in this age of speed, when most things are being cut short, the words we use seem almost daily to be becoming longer. It was bad enough when we had only the complicated language of the foodconscious and of the fireside psychologist to contend. with, but added to these, we now have in daily use all those long and ungainly words which have been inflicted upon us since the war.

As each war has had such an effect upon the literature of the period immediately following it, one wonders what changes this one will bring about. Perhaps the children of the post-war years will lisp something like this: "Pease pudding hot, pease pudding cold Dehydrated légumes, nine days old." Or this: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall All the Heavy Tanks and the Whole personnel of the Royal Tank Corps couldn’t recondition poor Humpty Dumpty again." One can imagine some mother of the future telling her offspring the story of the three little pigs. "But the third piggie said: ‘No sticks or straw for me. I shall assemble my house from prefabricated materials!’ " The time may even come when the plays of Shakespeare will be acted in modern language as well as in modern dress. If so, we could perhaps expect to hear Lady Macbeth declaim something like this: © "All the synthetic products of coal-tar could not de-contaminate this little hand." : It sounds better as Shakespeare wrote it, I admit. But after all, do words matter so very much? Even if words change, the emotions they express will always remain the same. Even the father of the Prodigal Son could not have felt greater joy than does any father of to-day who is able to say: "For this, my son, who was lost, is now repatriated."