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New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 392, 27 December 1946, Page 5

Sir-Your correspondents on the subject. of. pronunciation, with their chimsy attempts at phonetic notation and their uninformed dogmatism on the subject, may be interested in the following quotations:I wish to state that I have no intention of becoming either a reformer of pronunciation or a judge who decides what pronunciations are "good" and what are "bad." My aim is to observe and record accurately, and I do not believe in the feasibility of imposing one particular form of pronunciation on the English-speaking world. I take the view that people should be allowed to speak as they like--Daniel Jones in the preface to his "English Pronouncing Dictionary."" The ambition to do better than our neighbours is in many departments of life a virtue; in pronunciation it is a vice; there the only right ambition is to do as our neighbours . . . « while we are entitled to display a certain fastidious precision in our saying of words that only the educated use, we deserve not praise but censure if we decline to accept the popular pronunciation of popular words. . . . The broad principles are: Pronounce as your neighbours do, not better; for words in general use your neighbour is the general public-H. W. Fowler under the heading "Pronunciation" in his ‘"Dictionary of Modern English Usage." These extracts speak for themselves and jt is to be presumed that the status of Jones and Fowler needs no-.explaining to correspondents who feel themselves sufficiently well versed in the mysteries of phonetics and pronunciation to be able to hold forth at length in your columns, Perhaps it would be better if

they all gave it up as did the Frenchman learning English when he saw a poster proclaiming "Noel Coward’s Cav-alcade-pronounced success."

J. E.

BLENNERHASSET

(Remuera),