How They Speak

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 486, 15 October 1948, Page 5

How They Speak

HE member of the House of Representatives who sent us the article on Page 8 may or may not get a shock when he sees it in print. We hope no one else will lose a heart-beat. We had to assume when we received it that the writer had considered the possible consequences before he posted it, and fortified himself with "deep draughts of space." We tealised in any case that everything in the article could be proved or disproved within a few hours of its publication-a situation very rare in journalism. Only the deaf are not able to judge for themselves what their representatives in Parliament do. with the King’s English, and only the deaf don’t care, Most of us do care a little, and we take it that the purpose of our contributor is to make us care more. But he no doubt realises, when he singles out these irregularities, that he is doing what he can to make all his colleagues traditionalists. Whatever can be said for the rules of grammar, the rules of pronunciation are 80 per cent. habit; some of themt.very bad habits. It is no-doubt desirable that we should all make approximately the same sound when we wish to convey the same meaning, but pronunciation is not much more important than that except on aesthetic grounds. Speech should not only convey our meaning clearly but convey it pleasantly; gratify -ouréars as well as accurately jo ‘our minds. But what is musi¢. to: one pair of: ears may be a noise. to another pair, whether the test piece isa comic song or the Lord’s Prayer. There are of course mispronunciations that are sheer slovenliness, and all that canbe said for these is that they may in a generation or two become. standard (as offen and Wensday are now = standard). When Mr. Carr condemns his colleagues for not being slovenly in cases like these he is asking them to follow the fashion, to be. conventional in speech even if they are rebels in everything else,