Paxton High School - Reflector Yearbook (Paxton, IL)

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Paxton High School Reflector 7 .are pronounced by the niost scholarly and cultivated teachers and speakers. An Interesting list of common words, which are frequently mispronounced. was presented, and the proper pronunciations given. The following are a few of these words. If you have forgotten how to pronounce them correctly, or never knew, follow Miss Lateer’s advice and consult your dictionary. By the way. Miss Lateer urgently advised all high school students to choose for one of their clcsest and best friends, a good dictionary. These are »he words: Illinois, automobile, advertisement, equation, exponent, dis- course. laboratory, extraordinary, municipal, almond, hospitable, regime, illi trate, finance, February, Italian, abdomen, attacked. Attention was also directed to the errors so oiten made by students (?) who may be described as intellectually languid. For example some sort of mental languor can only account for the condition of the high school student who, in reading, pronounced the word “congressional,’’ “congrega-Loral.” or the word ‘legends,” legions.” Oral speech errors, due to slovenly articulation and indistinct enunciation. were net over looked in Miss Lateer’s talk. These are generally due to complex of mental and physical laziness. MISS WIGHTMAN’S TALK On Monday, Feb. 28. Miss Wlghtmar, of the Commercial department, talked upon the subject, “Business English.” Miss Wightman knows all about this subject, and presented selected phases of it with clearness, den-niteness and force. Sue emphasized the business letter, presenting in detail. the various rules applicable, the principles and conventions that have become recognized and established—whether in relation to content or form, salutation or subscription, or in the envelope address. Her discussion of the great variety of formal and complimentary salutations and closings was t specially interesting and Instructive. MISS CORBLY’S TALK On Wednesday. March 9, Miss Corbly, instructor in French, gave a ■carefully prepared talk on the general subject. “Diction.” Your reporter, finding it rather difficult to reflect its content adequately, prevailed upon Miss Corblv to reproduce it in form for publication. We are sure that it will be read with increased interest by all who heard it. and will be appreciated by either Reflector readers, who may have been absent or who are not members cf the school. Here it is: Two patriarchs of German descent stood on the street corner, conversing. One of them called to his son. Johnny, who was loitering near by, “‘Shonny! Run the alley down and bring home some meat for dinner.” “Shonny” did as directed and upon his return interrupted his fond parent’s speech. Tiien he received this German volley on the subject of good manner'-, “Shonny, when two gentlemens is talking, you must not conversation in!” This is the same man who reported that he had a new “Buck auty-mobile from St. Louis, with a chiffonier to run it.” Words are the expressions of ideas, and as long as the speaker makes

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6 Paxton High School Reflector An 3ntrrrfitinu anb Unatrurtiur S’rrirr. of (Ja'.Ua mi Un'ttrr teiutlisli (6iuni luj IttfinbriB nf Ihr Jfcirulti]—©tlirrs tn Jfollmu BETTER ENGLISH TALKS IN THE ASSEMBLY HALL In order to keep the “Better English” movement i.i our high school constantly and prominently in the minds of Ua hers and students, Mr. Bainum called upon the members of t:ie facu.ty to present with soni detail assigned phases of the subject in a series of special talks in the assembly. MISS WADES TALK The first of these talks was given by Miss Wade of the department ()t English on Monday morning, Feb. 14th. The topic assigned her was. “The I’se and the Misuse of Personal and Relative Pronouns.” She first spoke of the difficulties and dangers encountered in selecting the correct case forms of these pronouns, and emphasized the fact that habit or a choice made by the ear is never a safe guide, but that a definite and clear know.edge of English grammar is essential. Many striking, though very common, errors were given as illustrations—such as “It is him,” “He told you and 1 ” “Who did you see?” and many like errors. She then urged upon all, the prime necessity of knowing the following three rules, and particularly of knowin- how to apply them: 1. A pronoun used as the object of a preposition or of a transitive verb is in the objective case; and therefore, the objective forms, me, him, whom, etc., should always be used instead of the nominative forms I, he, who, etc. 2. The verb “to be” in all of its forms, (is, was, etc I except the infinitive should be followed by the nominat've case forms. 3. Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in person, gender and number. In discussing the third rule, the emphasis was placed upon th. importance of the number agreement of pronouns with their antecedents. Miss Wade’s presentation of the subject was clear, forceful and interesting. MISS LATEER’S TALK The second talk of the series was given a week later by Miss Angie I ateer. The topic assigned to her was, “The Proper Pronunciation of Words.” She gave notice at the very beginning of her talk that she would not present any very definite rules fer pronunciation, although a few may be found in text bocks. These, however, have so many exceptions that their value is quite limited. She emphasized the fact that the standards adopted by orthoepists are intended to reflect the established usage of the most cultured and scholarly people. It is the business of dictionary makers to indicate by proper markings, the standards thus obtained. Two ways of learning the proper pronunciation of words were suggested; the first, the use of a good dictionary, and the second, the careful observance of the way words

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8 Paxton High School Reflector clear his emotions, desires and interests by means of them, words have fulfilled their original purpose. “Shor.ny” and all or us, no doubt, comprehend the venerable German’s meaning, but the effect of his choice of words, was anything but pleasing. Gur purpose in our “Better English Campaign is a clear expression of ideas by means of good choice of words. Good diction is a worthy aim. Our friends—or rather enemies—who use slang and shift the responsibility of “better English” to us, may ask, Why did ‘rihonny's lather use poor diction? He got his ideas across!” And we gladly explain, Gcod usage regulates our choice of words.” Language is a growing thing—the language of our fathers may be defective in some respects now, for some words come and go. National acceptance and usage give us our power to permit one word in our vocabulary and cast out another. There are two forces which, today, tend to weaken the legitimate and refined power of good diction. One is the daily newspaper—great as is its value in scores of ways. Its purpose is to educate the people with the latest news of the day. and it often takes glaring means of attaining this end. The striking sentence, the statement, condensed at the price of good English.” are ever present in our daily editions. Such words as enthuse” and “donate.” have been coined without respect for the standard which says— aronse enthusiasm, ar.d make a donation. A second type of poor diction is provincialisms. The people of southern Illino's use the word, “kin to mean relative, yet that sense of the word is ro longer permissible as gcod English. Our neighbors from eastern I’nited States, add. er, to many words ending in vowels, saying “plazzer.” “verander. etc. A young woman, a graduate of Kadcliffe College was even heard to say. “Oh dear! I must not forget my umbrclier.’ Hut we can not always criticize, for these people think our choice of words equally peculiar. They think unusual our use of “sack” for “bag,” “bucket for “pail.” and s«ch expressions as ornery,” and “I reckon.” Most of 11s allow such words t creep into our daily speech and must admit that “by their speech, ye shall know them.” There are three types of people whose expressions we do rot wish to copy 1st. the man who speaks in general terms. He may deliver a lecture, yet upon leaving his presence, we say, “That man could not talk.” Probably it is because he talks about pleasant days and pleasant parties and pleasant people and does rot know how to put the right word in the right place. He does not knew—and probably does not care—that each word in the English language has a meaning and a purpose different from every other word. , The man who leads his speech with superlatives, we are not apt to1 follow—for he is very boresome. He wearies 11s with descriptions of awful, horrid, terrible, frightful things; and he disgusts us by their contrasts— elegant, fine, lovely, nice and splendid. His brother, the bookish talker, may attract more admirers. For even some modern Americans still seem to enjoy sitting open-eyed and hear-