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FRACTURED ENGLISH

OME weeks ago I had occasion to point out certain weaknesses in the pronunciation of foreign words by announcers on the YC network. I was chided for this by a Dutch friend who told me that I was affronted only by errors in the languages with which I have some slight acquaintance, "French," he said, crushingly, "of which you know little, and Italian, which you know less. Have you heard of the painter .. .?" and here followed a name which I heard for the first time. "‘Never," I said. It proved to be Van Gogh, which, pronounced correctly, is unintelligible to me, and no doubt to most of my countrymen. This gave me pause, and I know he was right. What we need less than scrupulous exactness in pronunciation, is an acceptable convention, which will inform the listeners of what they are going to hear, without too. grossly affronting the cognoscenti. So be it. But I cannot leave without a blast in the ear for those announcers who commit sins unforgiveable on their own language. I transcribe phonetically what I heard last week: "In the second horf, the soprorno .. . will sing early French myorsic. . ." Milton, thou should’st be living at ‘this hour! Fortnightly Review HIS amiable session has now been heard three times, and it is amiable because Mr, Anton Vogt is chairing it. He is urbane and quick-witted; he never talks down, but contrives adroitly to suggest that a programme on a fortnight’s work in the arts is nothing more, nor less, than a real famity shew. He .acts as genial middleman between concert hall and family hearth, between football field and art exhibition, by the use of homely yet ingenious connections, such as his reminder last Friday

that the Greeks were as fond of sport as we, but that they revered the arts and philosophy even higher. His speakers have so far varied from the astringent and provocative to the flat and inane. I have suggested it before, and I will again: make it a public affair, and give the Philistine his turn. Let him say that the National Orchestra is. pretentious, expensive noise; then let» someone talk him out of it, if they can. Make a living issue of these things, and the

arts wiil live.

B.E.G.

M.

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19550513.2.19.1

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 824, 13 May 1955, Page 10

Word count
Tapeke kupu
382

FRACTURED ENGLISH New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 824, 13 May 1955, Page 10

FRACTURED ENGLISH New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 824, 13 May 1955, Page 10

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