Unit – 1

Spoken English

1.1 Spoken English by G.B. Shaw

Introduction

George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, on July 26th, 1856. There are four recordings made by George Bernard Shaw (G.B. Shaw) that are published transcripts for the Linguaphone Institute but the date of publication is not mentioned. Courtesy to G.B. Shaw to have given his consent for reproducing his voice on Linguaphone records as it will be now possible for the millions of the people across the world to listen to his voice.

Let us first look at his plays and novels published so far:

PLAYS

Widowers' Houses; Arms and the Man; Candida (published in a collection entitled Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant in 1898); The Devil's Disciple; Caesar and Cleopatra; Captain Brassbound's Conversion (published under the title of Three Plays for Puritans, 1900); Man and Superman; John Bull's Other Island; Major Barbara; The Doctor's Dilemma (1903-06); The Showing-up of Blanco Posnet (1909); Fanny's First Play (1911); Androcles and the Lion (1912); Pygmalion (1912); Back to Methuselah (1912); Heartbreak House (1917); St. Joan (1924); The Apple Cart (1930); Too True to be Good (1932); Geneva (1938) and King Charles's Golden Days (1939).

NOVELS

The Irrational Knot (1880); Love among the Artists (1881); Cashel Bvron's Profession (1901); An Unsocial Socialist (1901); Table Talk (1925); Translations and Tomfooleries (1926); The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism (1928).

Record No 1

Let me introduce myself: Bernard Shaw.

I am asked to give you a specimen of spoken English; but first let me give you a warning. You think you are hearing my voice; but unless you know how to use your gramophone properly, what you are hearing may be something grotesquely unlike any sound that has ever come from my lips.

A few days ago, I heard a gramophone record of a speech by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the Parliamentary Chief of the British Labour Party, who has a fine, deep Scottish voice and a remarkably musical and dignified delivery. What I heard was a high-pitched, sharp, cackling voice, most unmusical, suggesting a small, egotistical, very ill-mannered man, complaining of something. I said "That is not Mr. MacDonald. I know his voice as well as I know my own." The gramophone operator assured me that it was, and showed me the label on the record to prove it. I said, "No: that is not Ramsay MacDonald; but let me see whether I cannot find him for you." Then, as the record started again, I took the screw which regulates the speed and slowed the record down gradually until the high-pitched yapping changed to the deep tones of Mr. MacDonald's voice; and the unmusical quarrelsome, self-assertion became the melodious rhetoric of the Scottish orator. "There! I said: "that is Mr. MacDonald."

So you see, what you are hearing now is not my voice unless your gramophone is turning at exactly the right speed. I have records of famous singers and speakers who are dead, but whose voices I can remember quite well: Adelina Patti, Sarah Bernhardt, Charles Santley, Caruso, Tamagno; but they sound quite horrible and silly until I have found the right speed for them, as I found it for Mr. MacDonald.

Now, the worst of it is that I cannot tell you how to find the right speed for me. Those of you who have heard me speak, either face to face with me or over the wireless, will have no difficulty. You have just to change the speed until you recognize the voice you remember. But what are you to do if you have never heard me? Well, I can give you a hint that will help you. If what you hear is very disappointing, and you feel instinctively "that must be a horrid man," you may be quite sure the speed is wrong. Slow it down until you feel that you are listening to an amiable old gentleman of seventy-one with a rather pleasant Irish voice, then that is me. All the other people whom you hear at the other speeds are impostors: sham Shaws! Phantoms who never existed.

Record No. 2

I am now going to suppose that you are a foreign student of the English language; and that you desire to speak it well enough to be understood when you travel in the British Commonwealth or in America, or when you meet a native of those countries. Or it may be that you are yourself a native but that you speak in a provincial or cockney dialect of which you are a little ashamed, or which perhaps prevents you from obtaining some employment which is open to those only who speak what is called "correct English." Now, whether you are a foreigner or a native, the first thing I must impress on you is that there is no such thing as ideally correct English. No two British subjects speak exactly alike. I am a member of a committee established by the British Broadcasting Corporation for the purpose of deciding how the utterances of speakers employed by the Corporation should be pronounced in order that they should be a model of correct English speech for the British Islands. All the members of that Committee are educated persons whose speech would pass as correct and refined in any society or any employment in London. Our chairman is the Poet Laureate, who is not only an artist whose materials are the sounds of spoken English, but a specialist in their pronunciation. One of our members is Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, famous not only as an actor but for the beauty of his speech. I was selected for service on the Committee because, as a writer of plays, I am accustomed to superintend their rehearsals and to listen critically to the way in which they are spoken by actors who are by profession trained speakers (being myself a public speaker of long experience). That committee knows as much as anyone knows about English speech; and yet its members do not agree as to the pronunciation of some of the simplest and commonest words in the English language. The two simplest and commonest words in any language are "yes" and "no." But no two members of the committee pronounce them exactly alike. All that can be said is that every member pronounces them in such a way that they would not only be intelligible in every English-speaking country, but would stamp the speaker as a cultivated person as distinguished from an ignorant and illiterate one. You will say, "Well: that is good enough for me: that is how I desire to speak." But which member of the committee will you take for your model? There are Irish members, Scottish members, Welsh members, Oxford University members, American members: all recognizable as such by their differences of speech. They differ also according to the county in which they were born. Now, as they all speak differently, it is nonsense to say that they all speak correctly. All we can claim is that they all speak presentably, and that if you speak as they do, you will be understood in any English-speaking country and accepted as a person of good social standing. I wish I could offer you your choice among them as a model; but for the moment I am afraid you must put up with me — an Irishman.

Record No. 3

I have said enough to you about the fact that no two native speakers of English speak it alike; but perhaps you are clever enough to ask me whether I myself speak it in the same way.

I must confess at once that I do not. Nobody does. I am at present speaking to an audience of many thousands of gramophonists, many of whom are trying hard to follow my words, syllable by syllable. If I were to speak to you as carelessly as I speak to my wife at home, this record would be useless; and if I were to speak to my wife at home as carefully as I am speaking to you, she would think that I was going mad.

As a public speaker I have to take care that every word I say is heard distinctly at the far end of large halls containing thousands of people. But at home, when I have to consider only my wife sitting within six feet of me at breakfast, I take so little pains with my speech that very often, instead of giving me the expected answer, she says "Don't mumble; and don't turn your head away when you speak. I can't hear a word you are saying." And she also is a little careless. Sometimes I have to say "What?" two or three times during our meal; and she suspects me of growing deafer and deafer, though she does not say so, because, as I am now over seventy, it might be true.

No doubt I ought to speak to my wife as carefully as I should speak to a queen, and she to me as carefully as she would speak to a king. We ought to; but we don't. ("Don't," by the way, is short for "do not.")

We all have company manners and home manners. If you were to call on a strange family and to listen through the keyhole — not that I would suggest for a moment that you are capable of doing such a very unladylike or ungentlemanlike thing; but still — if, in your enthusiasm for studying languages you could bring yourself to do it just for a few seconds to hear how a family speak to one another when there is nobody else listening to them, and then walk into the room and hear how very differently they speak in your presence, the change would surprise you. Even when our home manners are as good as our company manners — and of course they ought to be much better — they are always different; and the difference is greater in speech than in anything else.

Suppose I forget to wind my watch, and it stops, I have to ask somebody to tell me the time. If I ask a stranger, I say "What o'clock is it?" The stranger hears every syllable distinctly. But if I ask my wife, all she hears is "cloxst." That is good enough for her; but it would not be good enough for you. So, I am speaking to you now much more carefully than I speak to her; but please don't tell her!

Record No. 4

I am now going to address myself especially to my foreign hearers. I have to give them another warning of quite a different kind. If you are learning English because you intend to travel in England and wish to be understood there, do not try to speak English perfectly, because, if you do, no one will understand you. I have already explained that though there is no such thing as perfectly correct English, there is presentable English which we call "Good English"; but in London nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand people not only speak bad English but speak even that very badly. You may say that even if they do not speak English well themselves they can at least understand it when it is well spoken. They can when the speaker is English; but when the speaker is a foreigner, the better he speaks, the harder it is to understand him. No foreigner can ever stress the syllables and make the voice rise and fall in question and answer, assertion and denial, in refusal and consent, in enquiry or information, exactly as a native does. Therefore, the first thing you have to do is to speak with a strong foreign accent, and speak broken English: that is, English without any grammar. Then every English person to whom you speak will at once know that you are a foreigner, and try to understand you and be ready to help you. He will not expect you to be polite and to use elaborate grammatical phrases. He will be interested in you because you are a foreigner, and pleased by his cleverness in making out your meaning and being able to tell you what you want to know. If you say "Will you have the goodness, Sir, to direct me to the railway terminus at Charing Cross," pronouncing all the vowels and consonants beautifully, he will not understand you, and will suspect you of being a beggar or a confidence trickster. But if you shout, "Please! Charing Cross! Which way!" you will have no difficulty. Half a dozen people will immediately overwhelm you with directions.

Even in private intercourse with cultivated people you must not speak too well. Apply this to your attempts to learn foreign languages, and never try to speak them too well. And do not be afraid to travel. You will be surprised to find how little you need to know or how badly you may pronounce. Even among English people, to speak too well is a pedantic affectation. In a foreigner it is something worse than an affectation: it is an insult to the native who cannot understand his own language when it is too well spoken. That is all I can tell you: the record will hold no more. Good-bye!

1.2 The Pleasures of Work By A.C. Benson

Introduction

Arthur Christopher Benson (A.C. Benson) was an English short story writer, diarist, essayist, poet, biographer, and auto-biographer. He was a prolific writer in several genres. He is best known for his extensive diaries which contains four million words and comprises 180 volumes after publication. Benson’s diaries have been admired for their detailed portrait of both Benson and the scholarly circle in which he moved. He is also remembered for his literary and philosophical essays and his supernatural stories.

Explanation

It begins by explaining that most of us like what we do. But it would only come when we start taking for granted that we all are obliged to something. Hence, most of the people are not able to take certain pleasures in their life. And when they do something great, there’s hardly anyone to congratulate them so they motivate themselves for the work done with certain style and efficiency. It is difficult to find people who do not have the pride of this nature. Not all does share the opinions of our own work. But there are many people or artists whose works are open for criticism and it is invariable that they resent criticism and are always ready for the praises.

Recently, his performance has caused sufficient indignation in the parish, for a new organ has been placed in the church, which has louder tone than the old instrument and his friend is extremely adrift upon it. The residents have made-up their minds to send a round-robin to the Vicar to ask that the pulsator organorum, the beater of the organ, termed by old Cathedral statues, may be deposed. When he had previously attended the service, some strange verses came up in the course of the Psalms, which the troubled spirits make feel that the Psalter utter words to faithful hearts.

The same day, he fell in with the organist, who discoursed to him about the difficulties of a new instrument. The organist then told that some people might find a change of instrument bewildering but he himself felt comfortable on any instrument. Many well-known musicians had paid him compliments.

When he was a schoolmaster, one of his colleagues had the disorder and noise that prevailed in his form. He even discussed with the colleagues on disciplinary difficulties assuming that he might get some relief after confiding his troubles to a an empathetic friend. Later he discovered that the colleague was rather more successful than most of the people in dealing with the difficulties and handling them tactfully and strictly.

He believes that his principle is of almost universal application and that if one could see into the heart of the people then we could find that they were not free from certain pleasant vanity about their own qualifications and efficiency. Some people respond to the work really well and the ideal of efficiency is too high to criticize themselves any deviation from their standard. He has so far met only one person who did his work really well without any particular pride and pleasure in it. For this, extraordinary will-power and self-command is needed.

Most of us have the unhappy belief in our power of living a pleasurable and virtuous life of leisure and has a desire to live like a gentleman the character of which is persistent in the hearts of most of us. And for that, most of us enjoy our work which tells us one gains facility, and improves from day to day, is a source of sincere pleasure which fall short of perfection. The choice of our profession is mainly depended upon the certain feeling of aptitude for and interest in what we desire to undertake.

It is, then, a happy and merciful delusion are bound. We grow to love our work and even to believe in our method of doing it. We cannot delude in believing that we are richer, handsome, braver and more distinguished than others rather we should be more interesting than others.

Let’s leave our work for a moment and to turn to ordinary social intercourse. The contribution of the large number of bad talkers is the wide-spread belief that prevails among the people as to their power of contributing interest and amusement to a circle. The stream of tiresome talk pours from the mouth of diffuse and lengthy conversationalists. Even when you compliment others with the desire of saying something agreeable and saying some praiseworthy qualities, the steady downpour of talk will be experienced. The deadly and poisonous power of the tongue is to be sympathised. A bore is not a merely selfish and uninteresting person. He is often a man who labours conscientiously and faithfully at an accomplishment, the exercise of which has become pleasurable to him. And thus, a bore is the hardest of all people to convert, because he is, as a rule, conscious of virtue and beneficence.

It is better not to disturb the amiable delusions of people, unless we are certain that we can improve them. To break the spring of happiness in a virtuous bore is a serious responsibility. It is better to encourage our friends to believe in themselves both in the matter of work as well as in the social life. We must not encourage them in vicious and hurtful enjoyment. There are bores whose tediousness is not only harmless, but a positively noxious and injurious quality. There are bores who lay a finger upon a subject of universal or special interest, to make one feel that under no circumstances will one ever be able to allow one’s thoughts to dwell on the subject again and such a person should be isolated from human intercourse like a sufferer from a contagious malady. One does more to increase happiness by a due amount of recognition and praise even when one is recognising rather the spirit of a performance than the actual result.

Key takeaways

1. Be appreciative of what others have done.

2. Take easy on criticisms.

1.3 On The Rule of the Road by A.G. Gardiner

Introduction

Alfred George Gardiner is one of the most delightful essayists of the modern times. In the essay ‘On The Rule of the Road’, he points out what constitutes true liberty is. Along with liberty, we also have the theme of frustration, equality and control. In the essay, Gardiner is exploring the theme of liberty, both personal and social. Gardiner finds it difficult when an individual’s personal liberty affects the liberty of the majority and gives the case of the old woman walking down the middle of the road.

Summary

A stout old lady was walking down with her basket in the middle of a street in Petrograd causing great confusion in the traffic and with no small peril to herself. It was pointed out that the pavement was the place for pedestrians, the old lady replied that she has the liberty to walk where she likes. But the old lady doesn’t know that if liberty entitled the pedestrians to walk down the middle of the road then such liberty can also be given to the cab driver to drive on the pavement and the end of such liberty would be a universal chaos. Everybody would be getting in everybody else’s way and nobody would get anywhere.

The author points out that this kind of individual liberty would become a social anarchy. The rule of the road means in order to preserve the liberties of all, the liberties of everybody must be curtailed. When the policemen, at Piccadilly Circus Street, steps into the middle of the road and puts out his hand, he is the symbol not of tyranny, but of liberty. We must not think that our liberty has been violated. If we are a reasonable person, we will reflect that he didn’t interfere and hence result would be that we would never cross the Piccadilly Circus Street at all. We have submitted to a curtailment of private liberty in order that we many enjoy a social order, which makes our liberty a reality.

The author points out that liberty is not only a personal affair, but also a social contract. It is an adjustment of interests. He lists out some examples of interests like: wearing a gown and walking down the street, having long hair, walking with bare foot, dyeing one’s hair or waxing the moustache, wearing an overcoat and sandals, going to bed early and getting up late, are the few fancies that don’t need any man’s permission. It’s none of anyone’s business if a person eats mustard with his mutton. And you shall also not ask anyone if one should follow this religion or that, whether you may prefer Ella Wheeler Wilcox to Wordsworth, or champagne to shandy.

If one practices a trombone from midnight until three in the morning, on the Helvelly, no one would ask that, but if we intend to play it in the street, the neighbours will remind us that our liberty to blow the trombone interferes with their liberty to sleep quiet.

There are a lot of people in the world, and one should accommodate his liberty to other’s liberties. We may also forget this and unfortunately, we are more conscious of the imperfections of others than of our own. A reasonable consideration for the rights or feelings of others is the foundation of social conduct. 

Conclusion

The author concludes the essay by saying that we must be a judicious mixture of both anarchist and socialist. We should take into consideration both the individual liberty and social liberty. It is in the matter of conduct of rule of the road, that we pass judgement upon ourselves and declare that we are civilized or uncivilized. These small habits of commonplace intercourse that make up the great sum of life and sweeten or bitter the journey.

Key takeaways:

1. Adhere to the rules.

2. Along with personal freedom, social responsibility is also important.

3. Accommodate your liberty to others’ liberties, sometimes.

Reference

1. Spoken English and Broken English by G.B. Shaw

2. The pleasures of Work by A.C. Benson

3. On the Rule of the Road by A.G. Gardinor

Unit – 1

Spoken English

1.1 Spoken English by G.B. Shaw

Introduction

George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, on July 26th, 1856. There are four recordings made by George Bernard Shaw (G.B. Shaw) that are published transcripts for the Linguaphone Institute but the date of publication is not mentioned. Courtesy to G.B. Shaw to have given his consent for reproducing his voice on Linguaphone records as it will be now possible for the millions of the people across the world to listen to his voice.

Let us first look at his plays and novels published so far:

PLAYS

Widowers' Houses; Arms and the Man; Candida (published in a collection entitled Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant in 1898); The Devil's Disciple; Caesar and Cleopatra; Captain Brassbound's Conversion (published under the title of Three Plays for Puritans, 1900); Man and Superman; John Bull's Other Island; Major Barbara; The Doctor's Dilemma (1903-06); The Showing-up of Blanco Posnet (1909); Fanny's First Play (1911); Androcles and the Lion (1912); Pygmalion (1912); Back to Methuselah (1912); Heartbreak House (1917); St. Joan (1924); The Apple Cart (1930); Too True to be Good (1932); Geneva (1938) and King Charles's Golden Days (1939).

NOVELS

The Irrational Knot (1880); Love among the Artists (1881); Cashel Bvron's Profession (1901); An Unsocial Socialist (1901); Table Talk (1925); Translations and Tomfooleries (1926); The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism (1928).

Record No 1

Let me introduce myself: Bernard Shaw.

I am asked to give you a specimen of spoken English; but first let me give you a warning. You think you are hearing my voice; but unless you know how to use your gramophone properly, what you are hearing may be something grotesquely unlike any sound that has ever come from my lips.

A few days ago, I heard a gramophone record of a speech by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the Parliamentary Chief of the British Labour Party, who has a fine, deep Scottish voice and a remarkably musical and dignified delivery. What I heard was a high-pitched, sharp, cackling voice, most unmusical, suggesting a small, egotistical, very ill-mannered man, complaining of something. I said "That is not Mr. MacDonald. I know his voice as well as I know my own." The gramophone operator assured me that it was, and showed me the label on the record to prove it. I said, "No: that is not Ramsay MacDonald; but let me see whether I cannot find him for you." Then, as the record started again, I took the screw which regulates the speed and slowed the record down gradually until the high-pitched yapping changed to the deep tones of Mr. MacDonald's voice; and the unmusical quarrelsome, self-assertion became the melodious rhetoric of the Scottish orator. "There! I said: "that is Mr. MacDonald."

So you see, what you are hearing now is not my voice unless your gramophone is turning at exactly the right speed. I have records of famous singers and speakers who are dead, but whose voices I can remember quite well: Adelina Patti, Sarah Bernhardt, Charles Santley, Caruso, Tamagno; but they sound quite horrible and silly until I have found the right speed for them, as I found it for Mr. MacDonald.

Now, the worst of it is that I cannot tell you how to find the right speed for me. Those of you who have heard me speak, either face to face with me or over the wireless, will have no difficulty. You have just to change the speed until you recognize the voice you remember. But what are you to do if you have never heard me? Well, I can give you a hint that will help you. If what you hear is very disappointing, and you feel instinctively "that must be a horrid man," you may be quite sure the speed is wrong. Slow it down until you feel that you are listening to an amiable old gentleman of seventy-one with a rather pleasant Irish voice, then that is me. All the other people whom you hear at the other speeds are impostors: sham Shaws! Phantoms who never existed.

Record No. 2

I am now going to suppose that you are a foreign student of the English language; and that you desire to speak it well enough to be understood when you travel in the British Commonwealth or in America, or when you meet a native of those countries. Or it may be that you are yourself a native but that you speak in a provincial or cockney dialect of which you are a little ashamed, or which perhaps prevents you from obtaining some employment which is open to those only who speak what is called "correct English." Now, whether you are a foreigner or a native, the first thing I must impress on you is that there is no such thing as ideally correct English. No two British subjects speak exactly alike. I am a member of a committee established by the British Broadcasting Corporation for the purpose of deciding how the utterances of speakers employed by the Corporation should be pronounced in order that they should be a model of correct English speech for the British Islands. All the members of that Committee are educated persons whose speech would pass as correct and refined in any society or any employment in London. Our chairman is the Poet Laureate, who is not only an artist whose materials are the sounds of spoken English, but a specialist in their pronunciation. One of our members is Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, famous not only as an actor but for the beauty of his speech. I was selected for service on the Committee because, as a writer of plays, I am accustomed to superintend their rehearsals and to listen critically to the way in which they are spoken by actors who are by profession trained speakers (being myself a public speaker of long experience). That committee knows as much as anyone knows about English speech; and yet its members do not agree as to the pronunciation of some of the simplest and commonest words in the English language. The two simplest and commonest words in any language are "yes" and "no." But no two members of the committee pronounce them exactly alike. All that can be said is that every member pronounces them in such a way that they would not only be intelligible in every English-speaking country, but would stamp the speaker as a cultivated person as distinguished from an ignorant and illiterate one. You will say, "Well: that is good enough for me: that is how I desire to speak." But which member of the committee will you take for your model? There are Irish members, Scottish members, Welsh members, Oxford University members, American members: all recognizable as such by their differences of speech. They differ also according to the county in which they were born. Now, as they all speak differently, it is nonsense to say that they all speak correctly. All we can claim is that they all speak presentably, and that if you speak as they do, you will be understood in any English-speaking country and accepted as a person of good social standing. I wish I could offer you your choice among them as a model; but for the moment I am afraid you must put up with me — an Irishman.

Record No. 3

I have said enough to you about the fact that no two native speakers of English speak it alike; but perhaps you are clever enough to ask me whether I myself speak it in the same way.

I must confess at once that I do not. Nobody does. I am at present speaking to an audience of many thousands of gramophonists, many of whom are trying hard to follow my words, syllable by syllable. If I were to speak to you as carelessly as I speak to my wife at home, this record would be useless; and if I were to speak to my wife at home as carefully as I am speaking to you, she would think that I was going mad.

As a public speaker I have to take care that every word I say is heard distinctly at the far end of large halls containing thousands of people. But at home, when I have to consider only my wife sitting within six feet of me at breakfast, I take so little pains with my speech that very often, instead of giving me the expected answer, she says "Don't mumble; and don't turn your head away when you speak. I can't hear a word you are saying." And she also is a little careless. Sometimes I have to say "What?" two or three times during our meal; and she suspects me of growing deafer and deafer, though she does not say so, because, as I am now over seventy, it might be true.

No doubt I ought to speak to my wife as carefully as I should speak to a queen, and she to me as carefully as she would speak to a king. We ought to; but we don't. ("Don't," by the way, is short for "do not.")

We all have company manners and home manners. If you were to call on a strange family and to listen through the keyhole — not that I would suggest for a moment that you are capable of doing such a very unladylike or ungentlemanlike thing; but still — if, in your enthusiasm for studying languages you could bring yourself to do it just for a few seconds to hear how a family speak to one another when there is nobody else listening to them, and then walk into the room and hear how very differently they speak in your presence, the change would surprise you. Even when our home manners are as good as our company manners — and of course they ought to be much better — they are always different; and the difference is greater in speech than in anything else.

Suppose I forget to wind my watch, and it stops, I have to ask somebody to tell me the time. If I ask a stranger, I say "What o'clock is it?" The stranger hears every syllable distinctly. But if I ask my wife, all she hears is "cloxst." That is good enough for her; but it would not be good enough for you. So, I am speaking to you now much more carefully than I speak to her; but please don't tell her!

Record No. 4

I am now going to address myself especially to my foreign hearers. I have to give them another warning of quite a different kind. If you are learning English because you intend to travel in England and wish to be understood there, do not try to speak English perfectly, because, if you do, no one will understand you. I have already explained that though there is no such thing as perfectly correct English, there is presentable English which we call "Good English"; but in London nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand people not only speak bad English but speak even that very badly. You may say that even if they do not speak English well themselves they can at least understand it when it is well spoken. They can when the speaker is English; but when the speaker is a foreigner, the better he speaks, the harder it is to understand him. No foreigner can ever stress the syllables and make the voice rise and fall in question and answer, assertion and denial, in refusal and consent, in enquiry or information, exactly as a native does. Therefore, the first thing you have to do is to speak with a strong foreign accent, and speak broken English: that is, English without any grammar. Then every English person to whom you speak will at once know that you are a foreigner, and try to understand you and be ready to help you. He will not expect you to be polite and to use elaborate grammatical phrases. He will be interested in you because you are a foreigner, and pleased by his cleverness in making out your meaning and being able to tell you what you want to know. If you say "Will you have the goodness, Sir, to direct me to the railway terminus at Charing Cross," pronouncing all the vowels and consonants beautifully, he will not understand you, and will suspect you of being a beggar or a confidence trickster. But if you shout, "Please! Charing Cross! Which way!" you will have no difficulty. Half a dozen people will immediately overwhelm you with directions.

Even in private intercourse with cultivated people you must not speak too well. Apply this to your attempts to learn foreign languages, and never try to speak them too well. And do not be afraid to travel. You will be surprised to find how little you need to know or how badly you may pronounce. Even among English people, to speak too well is a pedantic affectation. In a foreigner it is something worse than an affectation: it is an insult to the native who cannot understand his own language when it is too well spoken. That is all I can tell you: the record will hold no more. Good-bye!

1.2 The Pleasures of Work By A.C. Benson

Introduction

Arthur Christopher Benson (A.C. Benson) was an English short story writer, diarist, essayist, poet, biographer, and auto-biographer. He was a prolific writer in several genres. He is best known for his extensive diaries which contains four million words and comprises 180 volumes after publication. Benson’s diaries have been admired for their detailed portrait of both Benson and the scholarly circle in which he moved. He is also remembered for his literary and philosophical essays and his supernatural stories.

Explanation

It begins by explaining that most of us like what we do. But it would only come when we start taking for granted that we all are obliged to something. Hence, most of the people are not able to take certain pleasures in their life. And when they do something great, there’s hardly anyone to congratulate them so they motivate themselves for the work done with certain style and efficiency. It is difficult to find people who do not have the pride of this nature. Not all does share the opinions of our own work. But there are many people or artists whose works are open for criticism and it is invariable that they resent criticism and are always ready for the praises.

Recently, his performance has caused sufficient indignation in the parish, for a new organ has been placed in the church, which has louder tone than the old instrument and his friend is extremely adrift upon it. The residents have made-up their minds to send a round-robin to the Vicar to ask that the pulsator organorum, the beater of the organ, termed by old Cathedral statues, may be deposed. When he had previously attended the service, some strange verses came up in the course of the Psalms, which the troubled spirits make feel that the Psalter utter words to faithful hearts.

The same day, he fell in with the organist, who discoursed to him about the difficulties of a new instrument. The organist then told that some people might find a change of instrument bewildering but he himself felt comfortable on any instrument. Many well-known musicians had paid him compliments.

When he was a schoolmaster, one of his colleagues had the disorder and noise that prevailed in his form. He even discussed with the colleagues on disciplinary difficulties assuming that he might get some relief after confiding his troubles to a an empathetic friend. Later he discovered that the colleague was rather more successful than most of the people in dealing with the difficulties and handling them tactfully and strictly.

He believes that his principle is of almost universal application and that if one could see into the heart of the people then we could find that they were not free from certain pleasant vanity about their own qualifications and efficiency. Some people respond to the work really well and the ideal of efficiency is too high to criticize themselves any deviation from their standard. He has so far met only one person who did his work really well without any particular pride and pleasure in it. For this, extraordinary will-power and self-command is needed.

Most of us have the unhappy belief in our power of living a pleasurable and virtuous life of leisure and has a desire to live like a gentleman the character of which is persistent in the hearts of most of us. And for that, most of us enjoy our work which tells us one gains facility, and improves from day to day, is a source of sincere pleasure which fall short of perfection. The choice of our profession is mainly depended upon the certain feeling of aptitude for and interest in what we desire to undertake.

It is, then, a happy and merciful delusion are bound. We grow to love our work and even to believe in our method of doing it. We cannot delude in believing that we are richer, handsome, braver and more distinguished than others rather we should be more interesting than others.

Let’s leave our work for a moment and to turn to ordinary social intercourse. The contribution of the large number of bad talkers is the wide-spread belief that prevails among the people as to their power of contributing interest and amusement to a circle. The stream of tiresome talk pours from the mouth of diffuse and lengthy conversationalists. Even when you compliment others with the desire of saying something agreeable and saying some praiseworthy qualities, the steady downpour of talk will be experienced. The deadly and poisonous power of the tongue is to be sympathised. A bore is not a merely selfish and uninteresting person. He is often a man who labours conscientiously and faithfully at an accomplishment, the exercise of which has become pleasurable to him. And thus, a bore is the hardest of all people to convert, because he is, as a rule, conscious of virtue and beneficence.

It is better not to disturb the amiable delusions of people, unless we are certain that we can improve them. To break the spring of happiness in a virtuous bore is a serious responsibility. It is better to encourage our friends to believe in themselves both in the matter of work as well as in the social life. We must not encourage them in vicious and hurtful enjoyment. There are bores whose tediousness is not only harmless, but a positively noxious and injurious quality. There are bores who lay a finger upon a subject of universal or special interest, to make one feel that under no circumstances will one ever be able to allow one’s thoughts to dwell on the subject again and such a person should be isolated from human intercourse like a sufferer from a contagious malady. One does more to increase happiness by a due amount of recognition and praise even when one is recognising rather the spirit of a performance than the actual result.

Key takeaways

1. Be appreciative of what others have done.

2. Take easy on criticisms.

1.3 On The Rule of the Road by A.G. Gardiner

Introduction

Alfred George Gardiner is one of the most delightful essayists of the modern times. In the essay ‘On The Rule of the Road’, he points out what constitutes true liberty is. Along with liberty, we also have the theme of frustration, equality and control. In the essay, Gardiner is exploring the theme of liberty, both personal and social. Gardiner finds it difficult when an individual’s personal liberty affects the liberty of the majority and gives the case of the old woman walking down the middle of the road.

Summary

A stout old lady was walking down with her basket in the middle of a street in Petrograd causing great confusion in the traffic and with no small peril to herself. It was pointed out that the pavement was the place for pedestrians, the old lady replied that she has the liberty to walk where she likes. But the old lady doesn’t know that if liberty entitled the pedestrians to walk down the middle of the road then such liberty can also be given to the cab driver to drive on the pavement and the end of such liberty would be a universal chaos. Everybody would be getting in everybody else’s way and nobody would get anywhere.

The author points out that this kind of individual liberty would become a social anarchy. The rule of the road means in order to preserve the liberties of all, the liberties of everybody must be curtailed. When the policemen, at Piccadilly Circus Street, steps into the middle of the road and puts out his hand, he is the symbol not of tyranny, but of liberty. We must not think that our liberty has been violated. If we are a reasonable person, we will reflect that he didn’t interfere and hence result would be that we would never cross the Piccadilly Circus Street at all. We have submitted to a curtailment of private liberty in order that we many enjoy a social order, which makes our liberty a reality.

The author points out that liberty is not only a personal affair, but also a social contract. It is an adjustment of interests. He lists out some examples of interests like: wearing a gown and walking down the street, having long hair, walking with bare foot, dyeing one’s hair or waxing the moustache, wearing an overcoat and sandals, going to bed early and getting up late, are the few fancies that don’t need any man’s permission. It’s none of anyone’s business if a person eats mustard with his mutton. And you shall also not ask anyone if one should follow this religion or that, whether you may prefer Ella Wheeler Wilcox to Wordsworth, or champagne to shandy.

If one practices a trombone from midnight until three in the morning, on the Helvelly, no one would ask that, but if we intend to play it in the street, the neighbours will remind us that our liberty to blow the trombone interferes with their liberty to sleep quiet.

There are a lot of people in the world, and one should accommodate his liberty to other’s liberties. We may also forget this and unfortunately, we are more conscious of the imperfections of others than of our own. A reasonable consideration for the rights or feelings of others is the foundation of social conduct. 

Conclusion

The author concludes the essay by saying that we must be a judicious mixture of both anarchist and socialist. We should take into consideration both the individual liberty and social liberty. It is in the matter of conduct of rule of the road, that we pass judgement upon ourselves and declare that we are civilized or uncivilized. These small habits of commonplace intercourse that make up the great sum of life and sweeten or bitter the journey.

Key takeaways:

1. Adhere to the rules.

2. Along with personal freedom, social responsibility is also important.

3. Accommodate your liberty to others’ liberties, sometimes.

Reference

1. Spoken English and Broken English by G.B. Shaw

2. The pleasures of Work by A.C. Benson

3. On the Rule of the Road by A.G. Gardinor