THIS ENGLISH BUSINESS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 276, 6 October 1944, Page 16

THIS ENGLISH BUSINESS

"The Position Is Really Not Quite So Sad As Is Made Out "~~Saye A.M., in this article for "The Listener"

R. K. J. SHEEN’S article, "English As We Write It," raises enough questions to fill with answers a whole issue of The Listener-and more power to him. I can only hope to touch briefly on a few points. When the late lamented Mr, ‘Dooley considered the string of social conditions which showed that civilisation was going to the devil, he comforted himself with one thought -that it wasn’t so, Though I am a good deal less well acquainted with research on the subject than Dr. Sheen, I am inclined to think that the position of the English tongue is really not quite so sad as is made out. At any rate, I suggest that a good deal more investigation may be necessary before we can be positive that our cultural standards, as reflected in our language and literature, are "tending to become lower." We must not overlook the fact that, within a lifetime, there has been a vast change in the reading habits of peoples. Not so very many years ago only a

minority read. Now everybody reads. If we compare a whole society of to-day with that portion of it which used to read, the average taste to-day may be lower, but is it lower if we compare whole with whole? Quite true, a vast amount of rubbish is read to-day, But isn’t it also true that more good literature is read than at any time in the past? Ask publishers who issue English classics. Look at the increasing output of well-written books of all kinds-new books and cheap editions of books a few years old. I am more and more impressed by the amount of competent writing that is offered. Whether we have great writers is a matter of dispute, It is less in dispute, I think, that there is a very large body of excellent writing. I suggest that in the last 50 years there have been more second and third-class writers of English than ever before — good seconds and thirds. The survival of great literary work is liable to deceive us into thinking that its age was uniformly golden. Every age has had its rubbish.

The teacher can do a great deal. All through society there are men and women who owe much to

a teacher who was. enthusiastic and _ discriminating (discrimination is useless without enthusiasm). Dr, Sheen, however, is quite right in contending that teachers can’t do everything. The influences of home and society generally have to be reckoned. But that, surely, strengthens the case for improving the teaching of English on the lines suggested in the recent report. If young people are to surround their future children with the right cultural atmosphere, they should be properly prepared for the job, Outside Influences As to influences outside the home, our old friend the Press is brought forward again, No doubt he isn’t all he should be. He is still inclined te the use (continued on next page)

{continued from previous page) of long words or terms where short ones would do, to say nothing of more serious charges. But the improvement in the general level of newspaper English in the last century or less has been marked. People to-day simply wouldn’t tolerate the absurd paraphrases and pomposities of the old-time newspaper. Journalism is often compared unfavourably with literature. There is no clear line between the two. What appears in a paper may be literature; what appears in a book may make a journalist weep for the English language. There is a great deal of good writing in newspapers and periodicals. To many people a printed word has special authority when it appears between covers, but that does not alter the fact that there is any amount of bad writing in books. Then there is the radio, It is often said that the radio corrupts musical taste by putting out rubbish. What of the taste it cultivates by putting out good music? A very wide range of the

best music is now available to everybody at a trifling cost in money and no more personal trouble than studying programmes and turning a knob. There has been nothing like it before. It is significant that music teachers are very busy and competitions are crowded. The radio also offers good spoken English. In the last few years millions have heard such English who never heard it before. They have listened to men and women who choose their words well and speak pleasantly. It is not only that many of the most prominent radio speakers are skilled in the use of Eng-lish-Mr. Churchill is a master of itbut on the rank and file who go to the microphone to speak for a short set period on a given subject, there is a compulsion to be brief and to the point. I refuse to believe that all this is quite ineffective as an influence. A Deep-Seated Disease So much for the defence. There is, of course, a vast amount to be done to raise standards. One common condition, which I believe to be the result of a deep-seated disease, is inflation-long-windedness in writing and speech, and the preference for the high-sounding to the simple. This is a characteristic of public life, and there are signs that the people served by public men like it. If the humble constable tells a chum about an afternoon off, he says: "I’m going to Silverstream" (for the sake of illustration), but if he is giving evidence, he tells the Court he "proceeded" to Silverstream, No prominent man has a doctor nowadays; he hes a "medical adviser." People don’t live in homes, they reside in residences. This sort of thing is all over the place, and the practice is growing. A few months ago, a London municipal body decided that its ratcatcher should in future be known as the (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Rodent Officer. You may imagine what A.P.H. made of that. The language of the official world in Britain is constantly satirised, and Mr. Churchill’s circular enjoining brief and pointed expression in the Civil Service was ranked almost as a victory in battle. It has been said that a well-educated English civil servant will sometimes use in a document English which he would die rather than use in a piece of original writing. (See, of course, Quiller-Couch’s essay on "Jargon.") A Basic Blunder There are various reasons for all this, but the one that concerns us here is a basic misconception of the nature of English, and this arises, partly or mainly, from faulty teaching. This misconception is that there are several different kinds of English, divided, so to speak, into watertight compartments. There is the English you speak in conversation; the English you use when you address a meeting; the English suitable for an official report; the English you try to use when you write an essay or poetry; and "Commercial English." (Even university graduates have given their blessing to this monstrosity). When people work in these divisions they adopt a certain style; they almost put on a uniform. The public speaker, for example, thinks he must use certain conventions and cliches. Hence the all-too-frequent poverty of public speaking. The "literary" style is thought of as a method divorced from ordinary speech and writing, something ornamental. Literature is set apart from life, whereas really it is an expression of life. As Dr. Sheen says (the report said it, too), the teaching of English is too literary. The footprints of Lamb and the literary essay are over it. For Sales or Sunsets There are no hard and fast divisions of the English language. There is just English, with its varieties. The welleducated man simply adapts his Eng- ~ lish to his occasion, and, whether he is reporting the Addington markets or describing a Canterbury sunset, he is bound by the same basic rules, The poet, it is true, may use words that are not used in conversation, but he also uses many common words. "What rot!" says John to William in argument. "To lie in cold corruption and to rot," says Shakespeare. Literature takes many forms, but the material is always the same. A batsman doesn’t take two bats to the wicket, one to defend with and one to attack; a violinist in an orchestra uses the same violin to play in a Beethoven symphony or a light waltz. So it is with language. The superb instrument of English is equal to every task, and it should be the first job of education to teach boys and girls, whatever their walk in life is going to be, to play on that instrument reasonably well.