NEW ZEALAND SPEECH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 429, 12 September 1947, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND SPEECH

Sir,-I have been interested in the letters recently published in The Listener concerning English pronunciation. No doubt there are some people who do affect an inability to "pwonounce evwy aa’ but in some. cases, especially children, the difficulty is a real one, and attempted cures painful, though seldom effective. Your correspondents. do not remark another and frequent lapse, that of including R where none should be, as in the words Drawing and Laws, pronouncing them as Drawring and Lawrs or Lores, Perhaps the drain on the supply of R’s by the latter offenders accounts for the shortage complained ‘of in the first case. The question of dialect is another matter..One of last century’s greatest scholars, orators, and statesmen is reputed to have had-a marked accent. Others might also be quoted besides W. E. Gladstone. What might very well be aimed at would be standard grammar, not uniformity of speech. I see the value of standard pronunciation in the production of plays, especially in those of classic character, but I think the world would be the loser if we ironed out speech to a level of an arbitrary nature. Who among us for instance has not enjoyed listening to the speeches of Mr. Churchill and also to those of Mr. Roosevelt? How different in form and pronunciation, yet who would desire to alter either in any degree?

The bane of the age is mass produc. tion: mass thinking and the regimentation of people into groups, political, industrial, social, ctltural, wherein nonacceptance of some particular shibboleth becomes a serious heresy, punishable as in the case of the Ephraimites on a memorable occasion, because Ss poor things. lisped a little.

RICHARD O.

GROSS

(Auckland).