Evening Star Newspaper, February 2, 1930, Page 84

was all the young rat ever answered, and Bhen- he would walk off to think for an hour whether he should stay in his hole in the ground or go out in the loft. One night the rats heard a great noise in the loft. It was a very dreary old loft. fThe roof let in the rain, the beams and rafters were all rotten, so that the place was rather unsafe. At last one of the joists gave way and the beams fell, with one end on the floor. The walls shook and all the rats’ hair stood on end with fear and horror. “This won't do,” said the chief, “we must leave this place.” So they sent out scouts to search for a new bome. In the night the scouts came back and said they had found an old coop of a barn where there would be room and board for them all. ‘At once the chief gave the order: “Form in dine!” The rats crawled out of their holes and stood on the floor in a long line. Just then the old rat caught sight of young Grip—that was the name of the shirker. He wasn’t in the line mnd he wasn't exactly outside it; he stood just by it. “Why don't you speak?” said the old rat coarsely. “Of course, you are coming?” *“I don’t know,” said Grip calmly. “The idea of it! Why, you don’t think it's safe, do you?” *I &am not certain,” said Grip undaunted, “the roof may not come down yet.” “Well,” said the old rat, “we can’t wnit for you to join us. Rignt mbout face! March!” And the long line marched oul of the loft while the young rat watched them. “I think I'll go tomorrow,” he said to himself, #but then, again, I don’t know; it’s so nice and snug here. I think I'll go back to my hole un- der the log for a bit, just to make up my mind.” That night there was a big crash. Down tame beams, rafters, joists—the whole roof. Next morning—it was a foggy day—some men came to look at the loft. They thought it odd that it wasn't haunted by rats. But at last one of them happened to move a board and caught sight of a young rat, quite dead, half 4n and half out of his hole. Thus the shirker had his due. It is obvious that this tale was not chosen for Buch frequent repetition because of its literary qualities. It is & clever arrangement of vowel sounds and key words whose pronunciation finds the greatest variation in different sections of the country. It can be readily recognized, for instance, that such words as home, caught, board, new, roof, asked, aunt, calmly, choice, fear and horror are often given such characteristic pronunciations that each one, alone, is enough to reveal the locality from which a person comes, or at least the Whose speech has been most influential in ing his own. When the reading the unfortunate rat has been speaker is asked, as a matter of and to give any other details of may occur to him. A study of the more than 150 records already made corroborates some interesting facts about the way in which various racial elements in our Ppopulation have shifted from one section of the United States to another, either impressing their own version of the English language on the original inhabitants or perhaps discarding their versions for the local patois. Prof. Ayres and Prof. Greet point out that our Eastern coasts, generally speaking, were settled by peo- ple from the south of England, which accounts for the frequent similarities between the speech of certain Southerners and Bostonians, notably the “Harvard A" The regions back from the oast were pioneered by Scotch and Irish, with ir harder and less slurring pronunciations, Middle West, settled largely by men of New England, preserved the accents of New Hamp- Ehire and Vermont. 1 frn tremendous size of Texas shows consid- erable variations in speech. In the cotton Bections of the country, populated by the in- Jhebitants of Alabama and neighboring States Jho went there and took their Negroes with Ehem, the Southern “r” prevails. In the cattle Bections, settled by men from the North and Middle West, an entirely different speech is tharacteristic. An amusing example of this Kact was afforded by a student who was brought In by the scouts as a good sample of the Texas ®otton country. Under the excitement, how~ &ver, of speaking into the microphone he ¥everted to earlier habits and gave an excellent demonstration of the speech of the cow Pountry. Later he revealed that he was born and brought up in the cattle section, but had 4 urasumledu)elpeechol’hhl’riendsmt.he n belt. In addition to these dialect records, Prof. es and Prof. Greet are making a permanent honographic library for Columbia University the speech of well known men and women today—a fact which ought to fill many of with terror,'as most of us would prefer hand down to posterity not our frequently nnected and incoherent vocal efforts, but more polished products of our pens, duly ited. Many of these speeches are taken ctly from the radio addresses. ! Thus Columbia has for all time, exactly as fhey were spoken, the speechcs of Edison, tein and Owen D. Young at Mr. Ford's frecent celebration in Edison’s honor; speeches by Premier Macdonald while he was in this tountry; the speech of Elihu Root, introducing ‘Premier Macdonzld; part of former Gov. Bmith’s recent talk to the Fifth Avenue Asso- kiation, with his quaint statement that “the ©ld boogy masters of New York dzcided to have Btrects named in this way.” ' If the speeches of the next presidential cam- Paign are as rich in dialect material as were fhose of the last the radio will bring very Valuable material to the laboratory. As time 30es on, more and more of these records of important current events will be made and Btored up in Columbia for the future interest of $tudents of his'ory and phonetics and the future @iscomfiture of the great. Columbia is one of the first American univer- Fities to have a recording phonograph. The example is being followed by other centers of Fesearch, notably the University of Ohio and the University of Chicago. The University of Paris began to build up a phonetics library in 3928, with the interesting addition of movies &8 well as phonographic records of the utter- Wnc:s of its prominent eharacters—probably ' THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. e e C, FEBRUARY 2, 1930. Those who deal with the English must learn their language. to see as well as hear a Prench- climineinthehr dialectic records more far making of an atlas of be trusted, will not be Eesperanto or some simi- lar synthetic product, but what is popularly known as “English.” The first insidious work in this direction was started, as most international movements are, not by the parlor theorists, but by the merchant- carried the language of the empire buflders to the shores of the seven seas, and a national linguistic stubbornness (or stupidity) on the 1 he Old Flower Vender. By Lewis Colwell. Earth has laid claim of kin on shuffling fect, But on he plods behind the blossomy cart He trundles with its burden passing sweet, Against the world’s mad mart. Frail bloom of rose, snatched from a frosty seizure, And tufted balls of gold and amethyst; Berries that turned to jewels through long leisure, Stems hung with rapture’s slender freight, star-kissed. And when my tread clings close to sod of earth— So close that 1 must plod a leadened way— Grant that I face not the ungrateful dearth Of loveliness unculled, but that I may, Like the old vender with his blossomy load, Trundle some beauty down life’s dust-swirled yoad! 1o the 77 ingless Victory. By George Edward Woodberry. Wingless Victory, whose shrine By the Parthenon Glorified our youth divine, Harken!—they are gone, The young eagles of our nest, They, brightest, bravest, best, They are flown! Lilies of France, When first they flew, Led their lone advance Great heaven through. Now soar they, brood on brood, Like stars for multitude, To France! France! Save thou the golden flight That wakes the morn, And dares the asure height, The tempest’s scorn! Save them o’er land and sea, In decps of air! Thy grace, wheré’er they be, Ensphere them there! Save them, the country’s pride, Our winged youth! And where they fall ensksed, Save thou the truth, O Wingless Victory! Prom “The Roamer and Other Poems,” Courtesy of Harcourt, Brace & Oo. — part of the men from the tight little isle forced those who did business with them to do it in the island’s medium of communication. The English people will not learn other languages; hence those who wish or are obliged to deal with the Union Jack must learn theirs. Topping the effects of Anglo-Saxon aggres- siveness has come the tremendous force of America, whose vigor has boiled out over the world in a flood of machine-made products and pleasure seeking travelers. American oil cans, cash registers, sewing machines, automobiles and tourists have carried our customs and our ‘language—and incidentally a great desire to share our prosperity—to the remotest corners of the earth. Those in every land who wish to tap the golden stream of American spending have realized that the first requisite was to learn how to us when we said “How . much?"™ IN the last few years the pace at which the language of the two English-speaking na- tions is being adopted throughout the world has been accelerated by the post-war growth of our export trade, by the development of the radio and the long distance telephone and the superiority of American films, both silent and talkies. But if the language which we call English is on the way to be adopted as a more or less uni- versal form of communication, the question arises: What is English? Men of Lone don assume, with British hauteur, that English is the language spoken by Englishmen. “Ameri- can” they regard as a kind of bastard which goes by the name of specech in “the States.” The standard of English, they will generally tell you, is that of the King James version of the Bible. Yet most of the speech in this country is far closer to the King James speech than the language, let us say, of the typical Yorkshireman or the cockney of the metropolis. The truth is that English spelling, grammar and syntax have been fairly well standardized by Dr. Johnson and the authorities, who have followed him, checking up regularly, of course, on the continual changes in the use and mean~ ing of words. It is possible to say, with minor variations, that this or that spelling or gram= matical construction is “correct.” When we come, however, to the pronunciae tion of these written words, and especially to the inflection, to what may be called the rhythm of speech, we are on much less certain ground. What, in detail, is the sound picture of American speech? And exactly how does it vary in different sections of the country? A knowledge of the correct answers to these questions would go a long way toward laying the foundations, at least, of some future su= thoritative determination of how the American language does and should sound in the mouths of our most cultured citizens, and would be an invaluable help to the increasing number of foreigners who wish to learn “American” at its best. Investigates Honey Production Tn!r'edualfimemmmthontwwtm . “bee” in business, The decennial census, which is to start April 1, will be used as a vehicle in finding out just what the honey production of this country amounts to. The Government, in order to foster the trade and give to the producer the benefid of its experiments in bee culture and its in- formation on market conditions, wants to know just how many beekeepers there are, how many colonies each keeper has, how much honey he produces and so on. In the past 10 years there has been cone siderable change in the beekeeping industry. Farmers now in many instances rent, for small sums, an out-of-the-way corner on the farm to a beekeeper who lives in the neighboring city. He knows little or nothing and probably, cares less about the extent of the business. This means that any effort to check through the farmer is useless, so the Federal officials will seek their information direct. The honey trade has become important, but just how ime portant it is, no one seems to know. Cost of Marketing Meat. THE butcher may be known one of these days as the “Slicician,” or perhaps the “Meatte Cutteur,” if the charge for a few passes of the knife and a hearty clip or two with a cleaver is to continue as high as it was recently found to be by C. B. Denman, a member of the Federal Farm Board. Addressing the Maryland Agricultural Soclety, Mr. Denman told of his experience, one day recently, in selling some hogs in the St. Louils market for $9.40 a hundredweight. Later in the day, he purchascd pork chops and found that they could be had at 25 cents & pound in the whole piece or 35 cents sliced. Fhe cost of slicing, 10 cents a pound, repre- sented for 100 pounds, more than he received for the whole hog per hundredweight. A similar condition prevailed in the case of mutton, when he was forced to pay seven times as much a pound for mutton chops as he received for his fat sheep. Mr. Denman believes that, through co- operative marketing, the spread between proe ducer and consumer may be reduced, Billiards Gains Popularity: BILLIARDB, like golf and bowling, seems to be on the gain in public favor, if the ex- perience of the slate industry during the past year means anything. During the 12 months, sale of slate for billlard table bases increased 15 per cent over the preceding year, some 248,000 square feet having been turned out. The entire output of the slate quarries of the country was valued at $10,868,000. The greater part, some four and one-half million dollars’ worth, went into roofing slate, electrical slate coming second, closely followed by slate for structural purposes. Nearly a million and three-quarters pleces of slate were employed in manufacture of school slates, while 3,415,000 square feet were used for the construction 0% blackboards and bulletin boards.