D'Arcy Cresswell is "Told Orf Proper"

Radio Record, Volume IX, Issue 2, 19 July 1935, Page 58

D'Arcy Cresswell is "Told Orf Proper"

To the Editor Sir,-With relief and gratitude wa read that in Auckland, where the gentleman seems to be appreciated by a certain class of listehers, others have been moved to protest against this quaint style of the poet, Mr. D’Arcy Cresswell, and have failed to get "a decided kick" out of it. His terms smack of the unschooled backblocks, and are typical of the slipshod, slangy habit of thought and expression to be found in the colonies. Huripides, Aristophanes and the rest, who had a facility of expression unsurpassed even by Shakespeare, and appreciated by the general public of their day, would turn in their graves to hear Mr, Cresswell’s bright chats; but what is more important, we "highbrow and snobbish listeners" resent that "the New Zealand poet" should insult both his subject and his listeners by couching his lectures in the terms of an ignoramus-to whom, by the way, simple English, decent English, is surely no less comprehensible. Furthermore, might we inquire what business it was of the Auckland station director to meet a listener’s objection with surmises as to Shakespeare’s possible use of cheap slang-surely a)» facetious and ill-timed retort, and one which merely revealed his ignorance of the man and all his works! Mr. Cresswell evinces a distaste for .Speaking plain Dnglish; we assume he also suffers from an aversion to read-

ing it, Should I have commenced: "I’ve got the wind up a treat about this chap’? JI. feel I have been too deplorably orthodox. Allow me, dear poet, to translate my few remarks: You are being "told orf, proper!’I am, ete.,

RATHER

FUSSY

Dunedin