The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-12-15
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
speaking Good English.

In one OF this seasons plays tnere
is q humorous situation in which the
heroine interrupts an. imprisoned
declaration of love from the hero to
correct his English. After which she
signs and says wistfully, THE Eng
lish language is so beautiful when we
do not mutilate iti"
The audience laughs, but there are
many in it who also sigh with the laoy
love, for the English language IS beau
tiful when it is not undergoing the
hideous process of being gagged, o1s-
membered, throttled and torn limb
from limb. And especially are there
women IN the audience who could
mingle their tears with the heroine's
when they think how wonderful,
beautiful and romantic it would be
to be wooed in classic phrase-to have
ropes of jeweled words hung about
their necks-instead of being courted
| in a mongrel dialect and having their
| ears assaulted by a combination of
| bad grammar, INSTRUMENTATION and
| idiems of the street.
| Fancy the sufferings of a woman
who has any affection for her mother
tongue when man calls her "a
peach" or tells her that she looks
| swell" instead of murmuring to her
that her eyes are like violets drenched
| in dew and her figure is like wind
| blown lily. Imagine her even having
to say yes to the proposal of man
her for keeps" instead of swearing his
eternal devotion to her by all his gods.
! It's one thing to be wooed as Juliet
was, and another thing to be courted
as July Ann is. And we can all I'M
| derstand why Juliet climbed over the
balcony to her lover. and why July
| Ann slams the door in her sutton s
/ face. 1t was the language that the
! gentleman used on both occasions.
! OF cource, as a matter of fact, it
| \ rrRl1 hi
whether a man pops the question in
good English or bad English. The
I Results are apt to be fatal either way,
| for it is a time when the woman who
| is in love listens to the voice of her
own heart and not the mans blunder-
| ing tongue, but on every other occa-
sion in life it is matter of the
greatest importance, for men, and wo-
men. also, to not only be on speaking
terms with their own language but to
have an intimate heart-to- heart ac-
quaintance with it.
Thy speech betrayeth thee" Not
! only by what people say, but by the
way they say it do they classify them
selves in the social and intellectual
| scale. There is no surer way of judg-
F.! ing a man or woman's origin than by
observing the kind of English he or
she uses.
! A good tailor and a dressmaker can
| transform the commonest born and
| the glass of fashion and the mold of
form. The illiterate and the unedu-
Gated can acquire a certain veneer of
polish thru association and travel, but
! the English they heard in their era
| dies, the words and phrases they used
in their childhood stick on their
| tongues like burrs of which they can
never free themselves.
You may notice this in the case of
foreigners who in any crisis of excite
1 Mt
mother tongue; or in the Southerner
who drops his RS and g's, or in the
Westerner who forgets his painfully
acquired broad a, or in the New Eng
| lander who when he is deeply moved
/ lapses into the homely phrase, he
lisped at his mothers knee and
| learned from her
! Our speech is part of us. 1t is the
hallmark of our breeding, and to be
able to dip down unconsciously into
a well of English undefiled is a surer
indication of belonging to the first
families than a dozen family trees. 1t
| is said that a brilliant but seIf-made
man once said to Charles Sumner
| that he would give a hundred thou
whom" as Mr.. Sumner said it. with
out stopping to think
Therefore, il is all important that
children should hear nothing but good
English in the home Thus il he
comes an integral part of them Most
I parents are careful. that their chill
oren shall not hear profane or OBJ
scene words. 1t is equally important