The Washington herald., 1917-12-14

In one Of this seasons plays there Is
a humorous situation in which the
heroine interrupts an irnpassioned
declaration Of love from the hero to
correct his English. After which she
sighs and says wistfully. The Eng
lish language is so beautiful when we
do not mutilate it!''
The audience laughs, but there are
many in It who also sigh with the
lady love. for the English language is
beautiful when II Is not undergoing
the hideous process OF being gagged,
dismembered. throttled and torn limb
from limb. And especially are there
women in the audience who could
mingle their tears win the heroine's
when they think how kvondelkl, beau
tiful and romantic u would be to be,
wooed In classic phrase-to have ropes
Of jeweled words hung about their
necks-instead Of being courted In q
mongreI dialect and having their ears
assaulted by q combination Of bad
grammar, mispronunciation and i'd
iomstof the street.
Fancy the sufferings of a woman
who has any affection for her mother
tongue when a 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 a wind
blown lily. Imagine her even having
to say "yes" to the proposal Of man
who tells her that he "sure does love
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 under
stand why Juliet climbed over the
balcony to her lover, and why July
Ann slams the door in her suitor's
face. It was the language that the
gentleman used on both occasions.
OF course, as a matter of fact, Il
doesn't make very much difference.
whether a man pops the question In
good English or bad English. The re-
suits are apt to be fatal either way,
for IL Is time when the woman who
IL 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 II is q matter Of the
greatest Importance, for men and
women. also. to not only be on speak
ing terms with their own language but
to have an intimate, heart-to-heart
acquaintance with It.
THY speech betrayeth thee" Not
only by what people say. but by the
way they say 1t do they classify them
selves in the social and intellectual
scale. There Is no surer way Of judg-
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
reared provincials into figures that are
the glass OF fashion and the mould OF
form. The illiterate and the unedu-
Gated can acquire a certain veneer
Of polish through association and
travel. but the English they heard
in their cradles, the words and
phrases they used in their childhood
stick on their tongues like burrs OF
which they can never free them
selves.
You may notice this in the case of
foreigners who in any crisis of excite
ment always drop back into their
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 learn
ed from her.
Our speech is part of US. It Is the
hallmark of our breeding, and to be
able to dip down unconsciously into a
well Of English undefiled Is surer