New Britain herald., 1929-04-15
>TA\DARDIIED > SPEECH
 Is NOT NEEDED

1 the other fellow to do what you like him 10 do is one Of the nations most pronounced ailments. The Academy, aroused over the fact that all Amer jeans do not pronounce words in eN- actly the same manner, wants to 1 bring this about through the medium Of example by awarding a silver medal 10 some radio announce rr who the learned members of |the Academy think pronounces his words in the most acceptable Eng fish. Thus the Academy sets itself up as the leading authority on Ameri- can pronunciation.
 We trust the radio announcers do not become sufficiently interested in |the pr@tensions of this learned Academy 10 take t seriously enough to attempt 10 win medals. One of | the advantages Of being an Ameri- can, as We S"e it. is that there is no standardized speech throughout the country; that it IS still possible to spot a man from the south hy the manner ju which he pronounces his words; that one can tell in d jitly whether a man halls from Vermont or from Texas hy the way he utilizes his tongue. IL is even possible al times to spot the native New Yorker by his peculiar manner Of speech. The Academy would do away with all this. II would have the radio an- nouncers and the preachers and the public speakers all talk in the same accepted manner. conforming of i course with what the Academy thinks is correct usage.
 | The country is not going 10 the dogs merely because speakers heard 1 by the public do not infect their VOW-ls and polish their cOnsonants all in the same manner. Personally. We like q little variety in speech. It is pheasant indeed to listen 10 some one talk with q method of speech that differs from that usually heard. To standarIize speech is 10 take variety out of 1t, 10 rob it of it's spice
 Another gentleman who has elect ed himself as an authority as to how the rest of us should pronounce the mother tongue is Deems Tay ylor. This so-caIled authority wrote an article for a magazine in which he pooh 1 poohed the manner in which radio announcers pronounce the titles of musical compositions particularly the titles in foreign languages. He said all they do is to read Up on the ! fOnetic pronunciations Of foreign titles and, parrot-like, repeat what they have read.
 Well. what if they do? How does Deems Taylor go about 1t? Since when Was he an authority on Eng 1 fish, French, Italian, German, Span ish, Russian and Swedish? ? What 1 language books has he written to prove he knows exactly how every foreign phrase is infected? Or is he no better than the usual vocal artist 1 who sings in foreign tongue so that nobody can understand what it is all about? By the way. how would MT. Taylor pronounce "zWieback ?' And is he sure he is right after he has looked it up?
 Only in the United States exist
 men idedlistic enough 10 imagine that it is necessary 10 possess stand ardized speech. The fact that the re-
 zion is vast does not discourage them. The Academy wants us all to
 pronounce English words exactly
 alike; MT. Taylor wants us all to
 pronounce foreign titles alike.
 It can't be done. Ii hasn't been
 done in Europe. either. where the
 half dozen major languages arc
 spoken in various ways in various
 parts of the various countries, The
 educated Englishman with a back ground of Oxford learning isn't going g to accept linguistic marvels from Cam mbridge as authorities; the edu- cated Scotsman from Edinburgh is
 certain the educated gentlemen in Glasgow are poor practitioners in the
 finer points of the Scot language and both think the highhat fellows ill and around London are plumb crazy.
 One of the thlls in radio is to listen to announcers who are diff ferent. The boys at Charlotte. N. C.. for instance. know their South And something different in speech is at- tainable al Toronto. Ont. Dialing to a ! diSfa pt etatiop and fipdip1 tho an
 nouncer talks just like the academy pets in New Ycrk would make one