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New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 342, 11 January 1946, Page 5

Sir,-It is with growing impatience that I have been reading in your paper what Ludovic McWhirter so aptly calls "This nursery dispute," in short, the argument of the place names. I am amazed that there are so many of your correspondents who spend their time worrying about whether the name of a seaport or of a boy’s college 13,000 odd miles away is, or is not, pronounced as spelt, It seems that the English are contented with their own pronunciation so that "Argosy," J.W.P., "Homey" and other well-meaning correspondents would do better to spend their-time discussing the | area of our own place names; as obvious examples, Paraparaumu and Paekakariki., In answer to the letter from a Thames listener in your December 14 issue it is unfortunate that he has nothing better to do than sit around waiting to pick on any little slip that might be made by an announcer or a politician. To compile a list of mispronunciations during the week seems an incredibly smug way of voicing one’s disapproval. It is not, to my mind, a heinous offence that a Minister, in making a point in debate, should slip over the word "secretary." I can well believe that the writer of such a letter must glory in a C.O.D. pronunciation, but I would warn him lest this issue of pronunciation play too important a part in his sense of values.

STUDENT

(Wadestown).