Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-02-11
ENGLISH, YOU KNOW"
OUR VOICES DIFFER FROM THOSE OF
 OUR BRITISH COUSINS.

The Angiomaniac's Imitation Scarcely so
 Good as Might Be Observation-Disclosures
 Between American and English Enun-
 ciation-Non-Englis Pronunciation.
 Nowadays, when even the salesladies cry 'carshn or ''cawsh,' We realize that Anglo mania has penetrated the whole mass of society. We need not be very old to recol- lect the time when English people were voted dull and stiff, English dress dowdy and taste less, and the English accent was theme for perfunctory jokes of the humber lecturer.
 Imitation is the sincerest fattery, and our British cousins may seem ungracious in sug- geSting that the imitation is scarcely so good might be desired.
 Flora McFlimsey is a young woman who tolls not neither does she spin; and we see her spend her strength in futile efforts to teach her tongue the English tricks, with heart unmoved to pity. But it is pathetic when the daughters of toll waste their needed energies in efforts so vain For they are vain, and Flora McFimsy will never be, as she 1atters herself she will be, mistaken for Jenny Bull. Her speech, in spite of her pains, betrayeth her.
 Our voices differ from those of our cousins over the water. Our drier air, our often over strained nerves, or our severe winters, affecting the lungs of successive generations, frequently produce those strident, rasping tones which excite the execration of Gail Hamilton. English voices are, as a rule, soft, full, round, low in pitch and (when feminine) low in contradistinction to loud, as was gentle Cordelia's She, therefore, who would fain relinquish the presidents English and adopt the queens English must not cry aloud, and especially must not cause her x-oic toI Iol 1,, {l,oe gate fishwife can misplace h's and utter vul- garity in such rich, melodious voice as is rarely heard in a New York drawing room. A WELL OPENED THROAT
 English speakers also open the t,roat more widely than we do. All singers understand the great difference between the round note emitted by well opened throat and the fiat, thin sound produced by a languid singer. To an EngliShman Americans seem to speak with the throat but half open.
 Cultivated Americans and the gentry of England and Ireland differ not so much in their modes of pronouncing words as in their manner of intoning sentences. In the speech of Irish people we hear fall in the voice at he close of almost every phrase or sentence. The first words are spoken in a higher musi- gal pitch than the last. Americans. on the | contrary, speak with a rising infection to-
  English speech, except when impassioned, | $ comparatively a monotone. Hence Fora McFlimsey destroys all the unities when she | IS simultaneously ''vivacious' and "English ' Our belles nowadays speak with stress l laid on every fifth sixth word The ever- l recurring emphasis suggests page from an | old fashioned novel of the bitter sweet sort where the tale is all of love and woe, and the sentences strewed with words in italics or small capitals.
 This is utterly un-English. Though ou, belles call the street cars ''trarls,' frequently say Don't you know:" and do not often Tor l get to pronounce Ca" broad, they have by nc means succeeded in identifying their $; leGci with that of the daughters Of A.oioa | Whether it is desirable that they shoud dc SO in all respects is, to say the least, an oper question! But it will be certainly well tha they shall cultivate low, pleasant speaking voices, such as Taine praised, and such as art not only ''English, you know," but also ''aI excellent thing in woman. '-E. M. HartlinGt in The Epoch.