THE BASIC ENGLISH-MAN
Sir,Mr. Graham Enting has the thing the wrong way round. To rejoice in last week’s "Listener" (with sour sarcastic sound) That speaking Basic English is the Englishman’s monopoly, Whereas, of all the tribes from Tarascon to Trichinopoly, Who speak the tongue of Shakespeare should be least enthusiastic For this synthetic salad-speech-this sort of verbal plastic. If you Jearn another’s language with perspiring puff and groan, You will find it perfect Hades to ernasculate your own! ; For years you've known the sentence shaped, the words at ease and vivid, Alive, familiar, flexible. And now must all turn livid? Grey, chilly, disarticulate, chopped up and stuck together, Resembling nothing closer than the basic English weather? A mess? a babu-journalese? a jargon and a paste? Not so much Basic English as the English tongue debased? ' No, sir; the thing can never be. The Briton will turn jingo, And Old English monosyllables restore his ancient lingo. In short, of all ethnology from Inch to to Ispahan, Least fit for Basic English is the basic English-man! (Music by Sullivan)
J. G. A.
POCOCK
(Christchurch).
October 27, 1944
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 November 1944, Page 5
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185THE BASIC ENGLISH-MAN New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 November 1944, Page 5
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