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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4,
1935..
Hongkong has its Oxford "accent". You hear it in the Club, tho Hotels, the cinemas and your office. Most people who don't use it are irritated by it—yet it is not made the butt of half as many jokes as the Scottish, the Yarkshire, the Cockney and the Australian accents. Now it's got itself into the London newspapers because the Post Office there. recently stipulated that six hundred new ladies required as London telephone operators should not havo Oxford accents.
Rose Macaulay, in the following article, discussos the number, nature and variety of English accents-all heard in Hong- kong-and concludes that the so-called Oxford accent is still a mystery.
VERY odd stipulation would appear to have been made by the British Post Office regard ing six hundred new young ladies required as London telephone operators: they are not to have Oxford accents.
Odd, because, on the fact of it, it seems unlikely that many aspirants for this career should speak with this tongue (what
and a Service worthy of it!
Movement. (By the way, the It would be interesting to And how charming it is, if one hus occasion to accost a VERY month big shipments of
excessive, the almost bigoted, know which, if any, of these Bedford trucks leave Eng-
loyalty of the makers of this manners of speech the. Post London policeman, to be ans- land for every part of the world,
dictionary to the University Office has in mind in repudiating wered in the speech of Lanca (Why Oxfordshire, Belfast, Scotland, or with And the rising export figures and
whose Press publishes it, is ad- Oxford accents, many hundreds of enthusiastic
mirable; it includes Oxford, de rather than Cambridge might n rich Gloucestershire burr. Aning it accurately as an English be asked, when the two Univer- (Nowhdays one is likely enough letters from Bedford owners all
University, and omits Cam- aities have always spoken in the also to be answered in what the over the world have shown that
Post Office official would call, I the Bedford is popular wherever
bridge, which, however, with same way, being recruited from Cambridge blue and all, is the same schools and homes. suppose, the Oxford accent.) if goes. Why this success ?
Hearing all these agreeable For, in designing the Bedford
admitted, probably in response But Oxford seems always to be range, Vauxhall experts studied ever it may be). The young to protests from Cambridge men, the generic name for the two sounds about him, as he must, overseas conditions at first hand. Indies must be under 19; so that to the Supplement, as if it had on the lips. of non-University this official must be a tone- been founded some time after
deafened patriot indeed to pre- Can patriotism go
fer Cockney, with its flat, un- 1890 or so.
lovely twang, its thin, impover further?)
ished texture, its urban com- monness, to the lilts, the burre, the full-bodied music of much of Greater Britain.
They learnt what was wanted in trucks from the very men who were going to use them......
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The
Hongkong Telegraph.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 4, 1935.
NAVAL PARLEY
PROBLEMS
Another attempt is to be made
they cannot havo had time for a University career, and whore they would be likely to have picked up a University accent is not clear.
But the phrase "Oxford accent" seems beset with dim. culties, and no one (even among those who use it) appears to know precisely what it means.
The Oxford Dictionary has it not, even in the Supplement, though it has various other Ox- ford combinations, such aR Oxford Blue and the Oxford
N any case, views as to the
nature of the so-called Ox-
follows:
speakers; Oxford is, for some reason, more widely known to the general public. Perhaps it was Oxford's forty years' start that did it.. Let that pass.)
*
ford accent seem many and THE official proceeded, it seems, to express a preference for divergent. I have recently col- lected opinions about it. They the London above all other can be tabulated roughly as British accents. I cannot help feeling that this must have been an outburst of pure Metropoli- tan patriotism. The London (Including Middlesex and Essex rural districts) seems to me de- finitely the ugliest British ac- cent.
(1) It consists in a narrowing and closing of vowel sounds, such as the i in nine, etc., which is pronounced a; the long o, pro- nounced approximately en, the short a in man, pronounced men, and so on. In short, the accent of Penley's Private Secretary,
Listen to the school-children shouting at their play, the van-
OXFORD
ACCENTS
and of the proverbial stage drivers reviling or greeting one curate.
another, the rag, bone and bottle How this speech came to be vendors crying their
wares
to discover a means of effecting NOTES OF THE DAY associated with Oxford, is not through the streets: and com-
an agreement between principal Naval Powers, in order
students
faw
(2) The broad and flat vowel sounds parodied by Scots, Irish men and northerners as ah: c... dinnah, deah, erentchah, etc. 1 have never heard a telephone operator use these; it would not,
BUT perhaps he is thinking
merely of intelligibility; and, if so, it must be owned that he is right. For most Londoners, to be addressed by telephone operators in rich Wessex or roll- ing Northumbrian, or even in the sweet it of the Celtic fringe, might be disconcerting. We must be spoken to as we can understand, and have the opera- poor Cockney ears
tors our deserve.
But the Post Office official should not have said, "London girls speak best." That is to claint too absolute a merit for this wretched Metropolitan lingo. He should have said, "London girls spenk most suit- ably for London ears."
And his reference to Oxford accents still remains wrapped in mystery. Were I an applicant, I should be perplexed to know what speech I must avoid at my audition.
The Very Idea!
The Scotsmen
The Management of the King's and Alhambra Theatres are offering free passes to "Bonnie Scotland" to the first five Scotsman presenting themselves in kilts at the theatres on Saturday-Nows item.
RIOTOUS SCENES
:
known. I have heard it said by pare the sounds thus emitted Cambridge men that it appro- with the sounds of similar to prevent an armaments race MAN OF MANY, PARTS
aches more nearly to a Cam- Retivities in Devonshire villages, when the Washington and
bridge accent of some years in Hampshire and Sussex Janes, London Treaties expire at the
Canada is congratulating her-back, when to mince was the in Cornish fishing-ports, in the
FREE: A MAGIC WORD end of next year. It is already self upon the appointment (now fashion in some circles. I have North or West Country, in realised, however, that the task that Canadians have met the man certainly heard this pronuncia Scotland, Ireland or Wales. confronting the delegates who and discovered mord about him?tion occasionally used by tele- Take any slow.train from Lon-Eddie Kelly Gets Amongst
in London very of their now Governor-General, phone operators, so it may be don to anywhere, and note how to meet are
an almost super- Lord Tweedsmuir, unt a shortly is
the one which the Post Office delightful it is when the names human one. Prospects are that months ago much better known as
of the small stations begin to be extreme difficulty will be ex-the novelist, John Buchun. The now deprecates.
called with a burr, with that perieneed in devising a scheme Canadian public has made all sorts which will meet the demands of of interesting discoveries about
pleasant twist round the tongue Lord Tweedsmuir. They thought
that no Londoner can emulate. all the parties. It is clear,
When I am in the West Coun- of him formerly as the author of however, that Britain, has been, Greenmantle and The Thirty-Nine
try I will inquire the way of
That in only the start of it. Mr. left sadly behind in the matter Steps and Huntingtower, or as the
some graceful agriculturist on Edward Kelly, with his neat brillians of naval construction, and, even artist who compiled one of Fir an agreement is eventually most intimate and appealing big-naturally, be encouraged in a my road merely for the pleasure forethought, hen written the urticles profession which specialises on of hearing the rich. alow that will appear in Hongkong news- renched, the need of modernis-graphies of Sir Walter Scott and a the trilled r.
euphony of his reply. When I papers on Saturday, Sunday and ing the British Navy and of masterpiece un Oliver Cromwell.
have appreciated-his- (3) The broadening of the am in the Highlands the voices fonday, thus scoring a notable scoop
for the Telegraph." securing a more equitable rela- They mas
They follaio: tive strength will have to be scholarship, but they did not know vowel i into something like ah, of moorland shepherds croon faced: That Britain has seri- that he was one of the most brilliant as divah-in for divine. This is about me like doves, while their of the only one of these three ac- children twitter like small birds. ever to come out ously reduced her first line of Oxford. He had been M.P. (Con- cents commonly heard to-day And on the Cumberland fells defence is beyond question. Theservative, of course) - for the among young University men what noble, what unintelligible Kilted Scotsmen Moh Police facts show that the total num-Scottish Universities since 1927. and women. Does the P.O. music rises and falls, like the Outside H.K. Theatres ber of ships in the Navy in 1914 but he had never been a politician; mean this? It is, of course, the running of the burn in spate! was 457: to-day, it is 273. The and Canadians discovered that. It
Amnaing scenes were witnessed on both sides of the harbour last
night, personnel in 1914 was 146,047, pleased them to find that this man opposite of the name for nine There is a Devonshire woman in
accent.
a small street near me; her hus- when crowds of foreigners, dressed compared with 94,482 at whom they had admired as a writer
(4) The ordinary educated band is a cobbler, and they have in skirts, attempted to gain ad- al-' a man experienced in present. In the meantime, the was
He public school and University, ac lived in London for thirty years mittance to the Alhambra Theatre ministration in many wask. population of the United King- had been with the High Commiscent of England, called by some and more; but I will take my in Nathan Rond, Kowloon, and the dom has increased, with nearly aloner in South Africa, Lord Milner, people "southern
King's Theatre in Hongkong. (“. English." shoes to be soled there in pre- five million more mouths to
Since early Friday night, large na private secretary; he had beenThis does not pronounce the rference to elsewhere for the feed, whilst the merchant on the headquarters staff of the except as initial or link letter, sake of the pretty Devon voice numbers had formed queues outside the theatre, attracted, no doubt, by fleet has decreased, and in this British Army in France; he was nor roll it even then, and might, that greets me. In the dairy reports that admission was FREE. connection it must be borne in Director of Information under the therefore, be rejected. by our next door to her the sing-song It
that appears
rumour quickly mind that in time of war every Prime Minister, 1917-1918, through- trilling telephone service.
of Wales croons to me,
aprend through the gatherings that merchant ship sunk or captured out England's blackest war daya.
the free tickets, limited to only five at ability hnd been
each theatre, had been obtained in would represent a greater loss His executive
some underhand way by a well known to the supply service than was proved. More than that, he had shown a flare for diplomacy, and
Scotsman connected with a lending the case during the last war.
Hongkong newspmper. Coming to the matter of dis-speaker he was amongst the armament, what are the facts? first few in the House of Commons, He was one of those with "the Upon the basis of numbers of grand manner," uncalled even in ships in the main categories, the most heated debates, erudite. Britain shows a decrease of 40 sharp to find an opening in his op- per cent., the United States an ponent's argument, and piercing it increase of 130 per cent., Italy with cold calculation and an increase of 96 per cent., and| rapier thrusts. Such was his Japan an increase of 75 pertency, and the sword-like charne- rent. In the matter of modern-ter of his reparter, that he became ising the fleet, the British record a much-feared-speaker before many months had passed, even as a back- compares unfavourably with
But Canada — French that of other naval Powers. At shown a flair for diplomney, and
bencher. the present moment, no British sympathetic gentleman received his capital ship has been fully first welcome to the Dominion In modernised. and the first one which he will be the King's repre- will not be completed until 1937. sentative-hnd- another surprise to Against this we have to place come. He rose to respond to the the fact that the United States Prime Minister's address of wel- has modernised ten of its fifteen come, and was warmly applauded. capital ships during the past But when he spoke in reply to the twelve years, while of nine Quebee Premier's greeting, a deep Japanese. capital ships three hush fell upon the gathering at
Rident Hall. For the have been completely recon-Governor-General was speaking in structed and four are in French, the polished French which course of reconstruction, while
(Continued on Page 7.) all will have been modernised early in 1987. These facts
with
new
are beyond dispute; they which will come up for consl- have been publicly stated by the deration. Whatever else is done, First Lord of the Admiralty. Britain will have to face the If
It is clear, therefore, that im-modernisation of her fleet. mediate action is required if the a satisfactory scheme of dis- security of the Empire is to be armament, based on the needs assured. All these factors will of the various Powers, can.be no doubt be stressed at the devised, so much the better. coming Naval Conference; they But the outlook at the moment. have a vital bearing on the issues is not altogether encouraging.
"Boys, I'm just being perfectly frank. I haven't the slightest
Idea whether he was safe or not."
Six policemen were injured before the mobs were given to understand that the tickets would not be dis tributed until 9 p.m.
At 8.55 p.m. a carload of late ar rivals, proceeding hurriedly down Nathan Road towards the Alhambra, crashed into one of the Safety. First beacons. Eighteen of the twenty- two occupants were injured.
At 8.68 pm, just as the box offices were about to open, loud voices were heard addressing the crowds, inform- ing them that, as a counter attraction to the Insidious theatre form of ndvertising, the Hongkong and Peninsula Hotels were throwing their doors open free to all bonn-fide Scots-
men.
Miraculously the crowds dispersed, whereupon tyve men, dressed irt kilts, atrolled casually, to the box office and claimed the free tickets.
The Peninsula and Hongkong Hotels were wrecked.
"I HAVE BEEN ROBBED"
Well-Known Scotsman Makes Serious Charge Against
·Compatriot
.
re-
Interviewed by a Telegraph presentative this morning, Robert MacWhirter, the well-known Scots man from Scotland, made serious charges against a former friend, Mr. Donald Machinery, also
from
Bcotland.
I didna belleve it of Donald," Mr. MacWhirter said.
According to Mr. MacWhirter, Mr. Machinery had approached him in a (Continued on Page 7.)