The Dickinson press., 1888-03-24
"ENGLIsH, YOU KNOW
OUR VOICES DIFFER FROM THOSE OF
OUR BRITISH COUSINS.
The Anslomaniac's Imitation Scarcely SO
Good rs Might BE Observation-Disclosures
Between American and English Enun-

The AnHlOmaniac's Imitation Scarcely SO
Good rs Might BE Observation-Disclosures
Between American and English Enun-
ciation-Non-English Pronunciation.
Nowadays, when even the salesladies cry
"carsh" or "cawsh," We realize that Anglo
mania has penetrated the whole mass of
society. We need not he very old to recol-
lect the time when English people We're voted
dull and stiff, English dress dowdy and taste
less, and tho English accent was Il theme for
%perfunctory jokes of the humber lecturer.
Imitation is the sincerest flattery, and our
British cousins may seem ungracious in sug-
gesting that the imitation is scarcely so good
as 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 McFlimsy will never he,
as she f1atters herself shc will be. mistaken
for Jenny Bull. Ter 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 exccration of Gail
Hamilton. English voices are. rs a rule,
soft, full, round, low in pitch md 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
voice to be heard in the streets. y Billings
gate fishwife can misplace his and utter vul-
garity i'll such a rich, melodious voice rs is
rarely heard in a New York drawing room.
WELL OPENED THROAT.
English speakers also open the throat more
widely than we do. AL singers understand
the great difference between the round note
emitted by a well opened throat and the fiat,
thin sound produced by q languid singer. 10
an Englishman Americans seen to speak
with the throat but half open.
Cultivated Americans and the gentry of
England and Ireland differ not so much i'll
their modes of pronouncing words us inthcir
manner Of i%ntoning sentences. In the speech
of Irish people We hear a fall in the voice ut
the close of almost every phrase or sentence.
The first words are spoken in n higher must
cal pitch than the last. Americans, on the
contrary, speak with a rising infection to-
ward the close of the phrase or sentence. The
English speech, except when impassioned,
is comparatively n monotone. Hence Flora
McFlimsey destroys all the unities when she
is simultaneously "vivacious'' and 'English.o
Gu bellies nowadays speak with Il stress
laid on every fifth or sixth word. The ever
recurring emphasis suggests a 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 u%n-English. Though our
bellies call the street cars ''trams,n frequently
say Don't You knowf' and do not often for
get to pronounce "a" broad, they nave by no
means succeeded i'll identifying their speech
with that of the daughters of Albion.
Whether it is desirable that they should do
SO in all respects is, to say the least, an open
question: But it will be certainly well that
they shall cultivate low, pleasant speaking
voices, such as Tame praised, and such as are
not only ''English, you know but also IAN
excellent thing in woman."-E. NJ. Hardinge
in The Epoch.