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.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 824, 13 May 1955, Page 10
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382FRACTURED ENGLISH New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 824, 13 May 1955, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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