Tuesday, August 21, 2007

A.C/G.B.S.

In the Spring of 1935 a group of people assembled in , what was then, the offices of the BBC in London.They were a committee formed to advise the Corporation on the correct pronounciation of 'spoken English'.There were 6 or 7 people present,a bishop,a few academics,a scientist ,writers ,etc.
Two of the people who were there , probably the youngest and the oldest,were Alistair Cooke still in his twenties at that time and already known as a foreign correspondent,English-born and based in the USA,and George Bernard Shaw,in his 79th year,writer,Irish-born,and based in the UK.
At that time the BBC announcers all spoke with what was called a public-school accent ,(public schools for some reason was the definition given to what we would call private schools).but the purpose of the committee was not to define accent but pronounciation.Shaw was described as being irascible in his old age,probably what we would now call an angry old man (Victor Meldrew of 'One Foot in the Grave'fame.)Shaw was chosen as chairman of the committee and of course had the casting vote on pronounciation.Shaw began almost immediatly to maintain that Dublin was the 'only place on earth where one could hear ''pure spoken English''.
The committee appeared to have had great fun with words such as lieutenant ,which was pronounced on BBC as lefftenant but in the US as loo-tenant, and Marylebone,(Marry'bn) and then there was canine, which all the committee, except Cooke,agreed should be pronounced can-ine,and Cooke said should be pronounced cane-ine as in America.Shaw agreed with Cooke,because his(Shaw's) dentist pronounced it cane-ine.One other of the committee said to Shaw ,''Then your dentist must be American''.To which Shaw replied:''Of course he is ,how else do you think I have all my teeth at my age?''
I wonder where I could get a good,unpretentious,biography of Shaw.I've read a lot about him but nothing by him except some of his letters to the London Times when sparring with Arthur Conan Doyle following the Titanic disaster.
Alistair Cooke describes how he last saw Shaw that day in 1935: ''At the end I see him leaving Broadcasting House on that late spring morning,a trilby shading his crinkled eyes and white beard ,his hands deep in a top coat ,marching with his wide tread down Regent Street,occasionally looking over his shoulder for his bus ,then deciding the day was balmy enough for walking all the way home.He might pause in one of the leafy London squares to sit on a bench and eat his delicious mid-morning lifesaver of a parsley sandwich.Then on down the Strand to the river and up to his apartment in the Adelphi and reunion with his only friend, wife, companion,Charlotte Payne-Townshend''........

1 comment:

Rob said...

Parsley sandwiches?...it's a good thing he made it as a writer because I don't think he would have gone anywhere as a celebrity chef.