Evening star., 1925-10-26
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

From Charles Town, Jefferson
County, w. Va, comes the following
letter:
my Dear Mr.. TraceweI:
In the This and That column of
The Star last Friday you discussed
two pronunciations of gladiolus.
Either way suits me just so it is not
'gladiolaI
Wont you please ask them not TO
talk about 'poinsettas'? The Century
Dictionary gives 'poinsettia -four syl.
lables. Please ask them not to, and
oblige, Very truly yours.
"P. S.-Kindest regards to Jack
Spratt. i am glad he succeeded in
finding what was on the mantel."
With the best intentions in the
world. therefore. l ask people not to
mispronounce these words-and that
is all the good ii will do
Everybody has some pet word he In
sists on pronouncing wrong. Crhe
reader is at liberty to read that
wrongly" if he prefers.)
The section of the country in which
one was born has much to do with it.
There are whole segments of these
United States where practically every
one, high and low, puts the accent at
the wrong place or in some other way
upsets the dictionary.
Then, again, the decade in which
one was horn plays its part in how we
pronounce certain words. I know sew
eral elderly men of eminent position
and much real culture who insist on
saying "Roosians" for Russians.
AT first l thought they were simply
calling it wrong, but after hearing
more than one of these elderly parties
do it ! have come TO the conclusion
they We're taught 10 say 1t that way.
!: = !: y
Some people insist on calling bomb
bum" perhaps with more truth
than poetry. Then there are any num-
Der of other words one hears COM
monty mispronounced.
DIR. EiZetelly has put out big book
containing 10000 words mispronounced
In daily usage, even by people of large
education. AS q matter OF cold fact,
our language is so full of words that
1t Is scarcely possible for any one not
to muff many of them.
1t Is my personal opinion that say
ing few words Incorrectly now and
then is help to the language rather
than liability. In the same way
believe that little bad grammar now
and then is relished by the wisest
men.
Without this fluidity in our Ian.
guage ii would become fixed, static,
uninteresting, as dead as Latin and
twice as dead as Greek, than which
there Is nothing deader in the world.
We need these little slips of tongue
and pen In order that we shall never
forget that our glorious mother tongue
Is growth and not an achievement,
a golng-forWard and not a standing
still, an outgoing tide, not an incom.
ing.
We ought to mispronounce words at
times and to slip up in our grammar
IN order to realize more and more that
the English language is essentially
human. not scientific; lovable, not
'eff1cient' fas the so-called efficiency
expert" knows the meaning of the
word. although it is tremendously eff
cient in the better meanings Of the
world.
One of the charms of the negro
'sp1rituels" is their dialect-which is
nothing but poor pronunciation, as
judged from the highest Standards
their bad grammar.
These wonderful folk songs would
not be half so good If a grammarian
would make them correct from his
standpoint, or some meticulous pro-
fessor of the English language We're to
write them all over again.
The humanity of our tongue is writ
large in every street urchin's speech
l heard one downtown not long ago
crying: