The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-07-04
NNTIDY SPEECH.
A Brief Exhibit OF Whittier's Conspicuous
Oifenacs With "R.N

To THE EDITOR or The SvS-.Sir: The
communications that have appeared from
time to time in The Sun on our untldi-
ness of speech were sometimes edifyinS'
occasionally interesting, frequently amusing
or all literary personaGes it was most appro-
pirate that Mr.. Henry James, being himself
a distinguished example of that whereof he
spoke should have been spiritually moved
to lecture us.
True there is a good deal of it. and not a
little OF it imported from the mother country
duty free.-whence Mr.. Henry James. Much
OF it, however, is of native growth. provin-
cal with ourselves. Southerners have been
reviled because of their Africani2ed untidi-
ness Of speech. Westsrners nave been ridi-
culed because of their preposterous. untidy
metaphoric exaggerations OF our common
tongue Fasteners and Northerners have
been persstently indcting each other on
numerous counts for criminal violations OF
the laws OF our language amounting to until
diness in its superlative degree.
New York, pluming itself in this as in all
else. as sons repr0chc, clumsily adopts the
Chinese syllable system. in which the phonetic
function of our letter IT" Is not to be found.
She has, accordingly. eliminated that tip
tonguing cultural from her Manhattanese al
phabet She consequently calls herself Moo
lawk" and speaks of all outsiders as "coun-
mothas wecently awived in Moo iawk to do
some shoppIn' and sightseein heah in Bwoad-
way an up in Fourteenth sweet an awound
Union Squah." This. and such as this, s Wan
hattlncse English, pure and indebted. and
for this untidiness Boston holds her in derison
and scorn.
Now. untidness is the antonym of neat
ness. and Ia therefore the synonym of SLOW
enliness And it is this latter manner Of
emily charges against Boston, az being, the
common monthpiece Of all New Englanders;
that caustic cynic yclept Sam Slick, the nose
was declared to be the PRINCIPAL organ OF
ys p9rG th. Of the
feature to b. Hence tic i came to pass that
II Boston and sll is pTiaeiHal dePsPTdensi e
OF speech without the use of that Anal "ng'';
and thereupon. the g. INA, was demitted |;
and s" !writin ""I and ScipheTin. anu '
Now it y well kn9wn to all the world and nd
q The Athens Of Ameriea, 81 course, those
Creek Fl p9hs efs Ps ives
to this they had to make sundry modihca-
tons of our American vernacular. And IN
ated the phonetic functions Of our tip-tone,ied
| letter r." Boston chivalrouslv corrected
that New York solrcsm by putting that re.
pudiated letter back into our language; but
put IT just where it was not wanted, and
whore il had never belonged. Thereby. in
Bostonian Greek such of our words "a saw.
became SAW: law, lawr. draw draw: and
so on
Unfortunately. this untidness not only
but actually infected some of their choicest
AthenIan litera,nrc, Our eminent American can
in, the shade of Bostons Cambridge, unguard-
eddy accepted this Bostonian Greek rho
iGr , pne or np9ony
unfortunately found repeatedly in some Of
his poems, GENERALLY so remarkable, for their
beauty ~ versitication. Thus IN his 1.alS
Dec is .'"nd this,
When the cruel rod OF war
Blossoms white with righteous law-tlnwr'.
Again, in his Brussels Convention" this
occurs.
In vain tho vision which the Prophets saw-tsawD
Sklrting with green the merry face o, War.
SO, too. in his "Miscellanies" it is written:
For Enslands Charter, Alfred's law-dawn
Wage In your name their ancient war.
And in his Panorama" this appears:
And held brute In practise. as In laT-Oawr)
Becomes In fact the thing he's taken for.
Other instances Of this unttdiness of speech.
for which not White, Whittier but the AmeriTa AN
perverted use of the phonetic r as in The
Merrimack"
And autnnn's rainbow tinted banner
Hangs lightly DER the Susquchanna- thanncD.
Again, in his "Mi-Cellane-, this is found:
Dry thr tears for holy Eva over
with tho blessed angels Leave her.
And tins is continued through the refrain
of all the seven stanHas of that poem, where
Eva" ia so pronounced as to he made TO
rme with leave her, give her. river"
receive her. never. "grleNe her, be
lievp her. "
submit that this is not English: it is Bos-
tonan Greek and British Cockney, II is to
be regretted thar Whittier fell into this lin
quail here's. In all else of his 23j Poems there
is no word We would change; not line to
erase. i. j. ALLEN.
MoRRIsTowN. July I.