Evening star., 1894-02-03
TO SPEAK EN- GLIS H
The American Vernacular and the English
Accent.
The Difficulty of COmbining the Two
The Coming Era of Pure En-
lish In America.
Written for The Evening Star.

Written for The Evening Star.
1t was my fortune, not long since to at
tend lecture given by an intelligent
American, who clothed his clever ideas in
nondescript garb, which some might
describe as the American vernacular with
an English accent. The speaker had evil
IDENTIFY given some thought and much effort
to speak his native language by the rules
Of English dictionaries, but the result was
as far away from the English standard
as If 1t had been spoken in the pigeon
English Of our Pacific coast
This speaker, knowing that we Ameri-
cans almost invariably deviate from the
English standard OF pronunciation Of the
letter in certain words. applied one of
its many sounds to nearly all his words
that contained that much abused letter.
He continually pronounced the word and
'awnd," hand 'hawned." lamp 'lawmp."
Reasoning by analogy he would have pro-
nounced man "mawn." lad "lawd," and so
on ad nauseum. He did not know that the
sound Of the letter a when pronounced
'ah!' is never "aw." as In awe, as many
seem to think.
While am in sympathy with every one
who wishes to rid his speech of faults. yet
we all know it is the first duty Of teachers
to be themselves correctly taught
There is but one step between the sub
lime and the Ridiculous and one comes
perilously near it when he attempts to
change lifelong habit of speech in a day.
Especially if he has feeble memory. One
cannot change his native speech as he does
a garment to suit the weather.
Had the speaker used his own vigorous
vernacular no one would have criticised or
wondered but noticeable failures in at
tempted elegance are always ridiculous,
and they become mere affectations. Very
few people have mental power of sufficient
energy after they had lost the Elasticity
of youth to change the early pecularities
of speech. Few can successfully uproot the
childhood and nourished through growth to
manhood. Yet 1 have heard that Henry
Ward Beecher changed the whole web and
woof of his pronunciation in a weeks study
Of the language on his first visit to Eng
land. 1 remember the first time that
heard him, nearly thirty years ago. 1t was
upon the occasion Of an address in the
Academy of Music in New York, on the
house. I was startled by his first sentence
which was: Il am glad to see this enthu-
siasm."
had always been taught to say "en-
thoosiasm, and before he had finished his
address my vanity was in the rags and
tatters of humiliation. At that time had
the arrogance of youth, and was at that
know-it-alr period Of life when one is
most particular about the p's and q's Of
speech. Yet felt instinctively that / was
IN the presence Of great teacher and I
learned lesson, which was that I did NOT
know how to pronounce my own language
while L was making great efforts to acquire
those Of other countries.
Thirty Years Ago.
In those days many of the clergy ignored
Snt
Noah Webster, especially in regard to pro-
nunciation. In the pulpit they would urge
us with proper zeal to our religious ..doo-
ties" In the service they would recite "en-
doc us plenteously with heavenly grace :"
They would read chapters from the Sans. {"
as they did from Samuel. pronouncing the a
In each with the same sound We were
piously taught the "beatitoods" Clergy
laity and teachers all called the public Jour
nails the "noosepapers," and in the next
breath they might ask whats the nooze?,
(Which rhymes with ''snooze," but which
meant news).
While they would correctly pronounce new
end few, invariably they called dew ''doo, :"
and so on.
In those days sectional differences IN
speech were more strongly marked than
they are today. Even among educated peo-
pie II was easy to classify strangers by
their phrases, as well as by their accent
Then the most intelligent southerner would
drop his rs" as he often does today. but
"befo' the wah' it was a mark of elegance,
Even an educated Bostonian would some
times express surprise by the eloquent ejac-
ulation. II want to know!" and he often
said 'wunt' for will not. In certain locali-
ties. the people would generously give two
bles such as 'key-ow' for cow .'gee-url''
for girl "key-ind" for kind. etc.
This was not mark of ignorance either
but of birth 1t vas badge belonging to
the 'fust famlys" Of the south 1 have
heard the word coffin pronounced 'kauffin, -
often. "auften;' doll. "daul" and some
times God was pronounced "Gawd," tutor
the same as 'tooter," brewery was depriv-
ell Of one syllable and became "broory," :"
bouquet was "bokay," and hundreds Of
other changes quite startling now. but
which was matter of course then.
The American Dialect to Pass Away,
There is undoubtedly a growing desire
among our educated people to speak their
own language with correct accent; and
among US we have many young people. the
children of our rloneyocracy, who have
been carefully taught to do so, whose voices
are soft. and whose speech is correct.
The American accent is only valued at
home. 1t has no export value at all, and
even here it is in a state of decline. espe-
cialiy in large cities among the leisure class
who travel. Our accent will pass away
with the Yankee dialect and the picturesque
speech of the negro and the slang of the
frontier. Everything is in a state of evola-
ton and there is no use kicking against the
| inevitable for the survival Of the fittest we
must prepare, and many think shat the
English language in time will circumvent
the globe and crowd out all other LANGUAGES
We are progressive people. We travel
We lose our native idioms. our patois, by
atti'it!on with the world. Lines of colloauial
demarkation are breaking down. Education
obiiterates localisrs in speech and broadens
our views The optinist has abundant food
for his faith All Of our people are rising to
higher intellectual levels. Universal intal-
iigence. universal education was once a
Utopian dream. but unless some sudden
check comes to our intellectual growth, such
as an excess of immigration from darker
worlds another century will see The dawn OF
| an age of pure English.