HOW TO SPEAK
Sir,-May I quote from the Preface to Bernard. Shaw’s Pygmalion: "The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They cannot spell it because they have nothing to spell it with but an old foreign alphabet of which only the consonants-and* not all of them-have any agreed speech value, Consequently no man can teach himself what it should sound like from reading it; and it is impossible for an Englishman to, open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him." If "Argosy," "Homey," and other correspondents will take the above passage to heart, they will find many of their differences and difficulties resolved. To "Argosy" I would say that the current and accepted pronunciation of a word becomes in time the right one. He suggests that "Kezzik" is the result cf slovenliness; maybe he is right, but surely he will not suggest that anyone should say "Kes-wick" merely because it is spelt that way? After all, there must be some standard way of pronouncing every word-otherwise we should all select our own version and immediately become unintelligible to each other; and it cannot be claimed that the standard ronunciation can be based on the spellg. Would "Argosy" pronounce "rough" to rhyme with "though"?
QUIDNUNC
(Dunedin).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19470314.2.10.7
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 403, 14 March 1947, Page 18
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217HOW TO SPEAK New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 403, 14 March 1947, Page 18
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