Like Local Dialects, Deride American Speech..

Radio Record, 7 August 1936, Page 5

Like Local Dialects, Deride

American Speech..

Mu

Keith

Gunn

k UCH unconsidered nonsense is perenially spoken and _ written in criticism of American English. Most of it is obviously uttered by people who have not thought beyond a few recordings or talking films. Their most usual complaint is that American nasality grates on the ears’ and that its idiom is unfitted for the impressionable New Zealand youngster. ‘It is apparently a case of the exception being mistaken for the rule. , Some years ago for a period of [ee en . ce a: _-- «

¢ tOMrT Mays 2 Nad practically no other company than that of more than two hundred Americans, and only. one voice of all those I listened t was unpleasant. That's an average which could scarcely’ be bettered by a similar group of New Zealanders. Apart from meeting them en masse, | have encountered citizens of the United States regularly for years; yet of these, the people whose voices and quality of expression were below the standard of similarly educated New Zealanders were rare. Indeed, there were some who, though lacking in educational "‘fin-

ish were easy to listen to by virtue of their softness of voice, colour of inflexion, and originality of expression, features usually lacking in New Zealanders of equal education. If critics of American English were more discerning there would be less of their criticism. Nine times out of ten they talk or write about "those frightful American records" or "that awful American voice of Cal Callin in that film last night." But what about those others in the cast of the film, and the scores of Americans heard on recordings whose "Americanisation’’ of the English language amounts to nothing worse than a roll which gives their vowels a different value from those of a B.B.C, announcer?. (And the ordinary colonial, with his "eow's" and "oi’s" in such words as" cows and pies would be just as much at fault if there were such a thing as standard

English. Most of the objectionable Americanisation of. English is to gain the ends of charace terisation in record or film. You strike the same thing in every day’s broadcasts with Lancashire, Yorkshire, Scottish, Cockney and so on doing their entertaining, Yet some .would have us revere the hundreds of provincial and local dia- | lects of England while we deride the ‘American version. Americans, whether they . OTiginate, ‘or appropriate, have a happy: knack’ of aptly expressing themselves in brief-and picturesque ‘words: Although a Jot of this racy idiom is used in ordinary speech and in some types of publication, and a proportion of it gets into films and gramaphone recordings, why

should it be condemned when we tolerate the colloquialisms of our own dialects? If English purism is the aim of critics of American speech, why do not the same people object tc post-war immigration which brought dialects from every. part of Great Britain to "corrupt" the language of the grow: ing New Zealander? As long as its use is confined to suitable subject matter, | am all for a brighter English-more colourful with apt simile, more human than academic,

more striking than slangy. Indeed, it is surprising to find such good speech coming from a :continent which after all contains millions of inhabitants whose pro-« genitors were anything but English... A charge recently laid by an English writer that American com- ' mentaries were among other’ things, "‘crude" anda "continuous string of excited comment" drew this reply from anather Englishman: "Continuous! You write . as though continuity were not: one. of the fundamental necessities: of a commentary. ' And "excited’!’ Well. it’s a nanr came if yo .

rouse you to excitement. And they are ‘facetious’! | Utter- . ly deplorable that a spark of wit should brighten and ‘make more palatable the long string of facts. | Jt would not be-. ‘come our ‘British attitude toward sport." And then ° ‘the . ‘slangy vein’ and the wisecracks. These condense — Jone sentences into’ epigrammatic, stimulating and picturesque phrases." . That about sums up the subject of comparative mentaries, and the appreciation of the Americans in this ' is reflected in the fan-mail which poured into 2YA, Wellington, after a visiting American wrestler described three rounds of a match some .imi ago. : And why should not Americans produce Shakespeare? . Have they not as much right to appreciate the bard as the | English? Their interest in

Hhakespeare seems to be deeper than New Zealand's, to judge by the reception of a recent film; a: film made "essentially for Americans, perhaps, and the rest of the world could could: take it or leave it. Maybe it sounds funny-to some objectionable-to hear-an American accer interpreting Shakespeare. But what of French and German and Italian translations of it? Are they, too,, funny’ or objectionable? No more so than English translations of Continental opera! oo ‘Let ‘us ° exclude © the: gangster, the Bowery, and the negroid vocabularies from everyday English, by all means. But there is a wealth of desirable phraseology in America with which the. "original" English -would be greatly enriched,

_ Next -week’s article, on American newspapers and radio,

has been written by Mr.

Mason

Warner

of the "Chicago

4rbune

Handlebar Moustache

FFANDLEBAR MOUSTACHE...is how an ‘American writer describes an adornment which an Englishman might have ciiied "a moustache whose appearance reminds one Of the horns of a Highland cow." Need any more be said for the picturesqueness of the United States English? The article on this page does not defend objectionable Americanisms, but on the. other hand, it offers no compromise. TUL Ht PATTER EEE