The Pittsburgh Press (March 24, 1943)
I DARE SAY —
Hold that accent!
By Florence Fisher Parry
Who shall estimate the power of an accent! Our President’s has become a criterion for speakers all over the world! What radio announcer, actor, politician, lecturer or preacher, has not himself felt the influence of that famous delivery, and himself become, however unconsciously, its imitator?
It has come to be accepted, the world over, as the perfect example of pure speech in America. It has, indeed, a purer accent than that of the British and certainly purer than that of the Britisher’s closest imitator, the Bostonian. Certain it is that the speech of most public men has improved by virtue of the excellent example provided by their leader in the White House.
But there, pray, let it end! Outside of professional speakers and actors, I do wish that we would enjoy a return to “native” speech! It is admirable and helpful for our President, who must needs speak to all the world, to possess an accent that is as nearly cosmopolitan as any ever held by an American. But oh, the folly of attempting to destroy, by false concepts and practices on the part of certain purists, one of the most delightful possessions man is heir to; and that is, his NATIVE speech, whatever that may be!
There has been effort made to standardize our speech here in America. And the swift changes wrought by modern transportation, radio and – now especially – this great World War, make it extremely likely that this standardization will indeed come about if steps are not taken to prevent it! Before we know it, the rich heritage of our native idiom will be lost, and Kentuckian and New Englander, Texas and East Shoreman, will be talking the same talk in the same accent and idiom!
Perish the thought!
Heaven forbid!
Already, up home, it is hard to find a true and undefiled specimen of our old speech as it was spoken even in the days of my own childhood! O for a “Maizie and Annie” to bring us back the unpolluted provincial speech of yesterday.
Now there is even a more absurd movement afoot to establish a world language! A kind of expanded Esperanto to embrace all of mankind! How – “weary, flat, stale and unprofitable” would seem to us all the usages of speech if it would come to that!
But, mercifully, it won’t – it can’t. No, nor that other corruption, a uniform accent. So long as features differ, and normal tastes and temperament and blood – so long will Texans speak like Texans, Down-Easterners New England, the melodious accent of the South issue from the lips of her sons and daughters.
Myself, I rejoice that this is so! For differences in speech give more color to countries and people than any other distinguishing mark; and I can think of no bleaker prospect than that of hearing a West Coast prospector employ the accents of a Lancaster County farmer, or either the impeccable accents of a Bostonian!
Home sweet home
What indeed has endeared and cemented one people with another? Why, the quaintness and freshness of their separate speech! It was not the abominated “Reconstruction” program following the Civil War that bound up the nation’s wounds; no! it was that our Yankee interlopers in the South found the accents of her fair daughters irresistible!
What made our post-war relations with France close and warm? It was that our doughboys could not resist the accent of the mademoiselles, just as those same mademoiselles found the faltering French of the Yanks their most endearing trait!
Nature tends to infinite variety in her selection of mates; and how she would be foiled if such a disaster as a common accent and speech should circumvent her ancient method of snaring lovers!
Take accents, idioms and dearly-cherished provincialisms away from our speech, and we will become a dreary folk indeed, without tang or color, without charm or spunk! Heaven forfend us, we will have none of THIS! Shades of Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Bobbie Burns, be we men or mice? Have we tongues in our mouths? Then let them roll out the syllables we were born to, in accents that attest our love of home sweet home!