ENGLISH PLACE NAMES
Sir,-May I (if I am permitted to intervene in this nursery dispute) point out that Yarmouth is pronounced "Yarmouth," giving full) and unequivocal value to the "r". Had it been intended that it should be called "Ya-mooth," "Yaw-muth" or even "Yumth" it would have been spelled so and those who maintain otherwise merely underline what has been long known-namely, that the only well of English undefiled flows southward into the Tweed. It is time someone pointed out that the slovenliness of the English dialect in its variant forms derives either from illiteracy (as, no doubt, in the case of "Oxford" English) or, as with Cockney, a lack of adequate training in childhood in the proper use of tongue, teeth, throat, and palate in articulation. My own son, aged three, calls loudly for his "powwidge" at breakfast time, but I have no fear that in another two years he will roll both r’s properly (and mayhap even add a third if he is particularly hungry).
LUDOVIC McWHIRTER
(Auckland).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19451207.2.13.10
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 337, 7 December 1945, Page 25
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170ENGLISH PLACE NAMES New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 337, 7 December 1945, Page 25
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