ENGLISH?
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR, In Mr. Basil Maine's article in your issue of June 11th, under "Music—the Beecham-Wagner Festival," he remarks, 4/ • • • there are those who in their ecstatic admiration of Sir Thomas can only be described as fans, if the word can now be respectably used without inverted and apologetic commas." Why should it be used-at all, what does it mean, what does " blurb " mean ? Whence come these words ? Are we going to take ugly, stupid words into our language, words that come from the nursery, baby talk, as in "movies" and " talkies " ? Shame on us to defile our rich and beautiful language with such puerile rubbish. Surely Mr. Maine and other writers in the Spectator have not such a poor vocabulary that they are unable to find words much better, more expressive and effective in our own language, without adopting film vulgarisms to assist them ! It hurts those who love our language to have any of these low-grade words appear in the Spectator, which, of all publica- tions in our tongue, should uphold clean, good, powerful and beautiful English.
The film language is having an appalling effect on the speech of young children. Let us see to it that good English be given to them. One shudders to think what our beautiful language may become in a very short time if we continue to import all the infantile words coined by the least admirable inhabitants of a large country across the ocean !—I am, Sir, &c.,
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