THE ENGLISH TONGUE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2418, 5 February 1909, Page 2

THE ENGLISH TONGUE.

“DEGRADED” BY NEW ZEALANDERS.

At a -'meeting at Auckland . last week of the University Senate, Mr. L. Cohen, M.A., commented strongly on what he declared to be the degradation of the English language by New Zealanders. His remarks were called forth by a recommendation of the Authors and Periods Committee, to include in the matriculation course, grammar, not including historical grammar, and the nature and classification of modern English sounds in relation to their bearing on orthography. ' . It seemed that the recommendation was about to pass without exciting ■any unusual comment, when Air. Cohen rose. “I regard this new prescription as being the greatest -advance that has been made in elementary English culture during my career on tho senate,” he said. As an example of what he meant, Air. Cohen said that in singing, the diction of New Zealand boys and girls was so faulty that, they lost tlio beauty of the words and tlie melody. One had only to hear some cultured English .man or woman -sing to learn how gross and porverse our diction had become. As to the proposal, he hoped that the examiners would, so far as it could bo done by written work*- make it ian essential' part of their paper so as to save thee New Zealand peoplo from talking a degraded and un-English tongue. He attributed the fault he had pointed out to the inability of tho teachers in country schools to. speak decent English. The recommendation w-as carried.