Beggars cannot be choosers
(old proverb)
I had this letter this morning from Mr. Hopcroft. And it was very harshly critical of my diction. And Mr. Hopcroft protested that I didn't pronounce my R's properly. He said if you don't believe me repeat aloud the following sentence. And the sentence in the letter read, "Round and round the rucked rocks the ragged rascal ran."
Do you see anything wrong with that?
But this chap complained; he said that I sort of diminished the R sound. And that it should be a very loud and big sound, the sound that Shakespeare had with Romeo and Juliet and Richard the Second and Richard the Third and the Two Gentlemen of Verona. Big and powerful.
And he said that the R is very important sound quality in the English language and it should be large and choice. And I was thinking about this. I agree, by and large, that my Rs are not what they should be. It's got to be faced. They are a bit sort of muffled and mangled.
I missed elocution at school You know when you're at school if you miss the first day of a subject, you never catch up. I missed the first day of English grammar. Mind you, it doesn't notice; I speak just what similar other people do.
But I had three teeth removed during the lessons in elocution. Not only was I light on knowledge when I was at school, but I was about half a stone light on weight. But I just missed this business of elocution. And I agree that my Rs are a little sort of muffled and small.
But what I CONTEST is the fact, that because a thing is bigger, it's better. I JUST (I'm getting vehement aren't I). I just don't agree with that.
The poetess who wrote, "Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make a mighty ocean and the pleasant land."
How right she was.
But what about BIG drops of water. What do you get: floods, deluges, ruins, foreign exhanges deluged, areas such as mine cut off for seven days.
Little grains of sand, beautiful. What happens if you get large, bigger grains of sand. I'll give you an impression, see if you can guess what this is. "Oo, ah, oo, Oo, ah, oo, Oo, ah, oo, Oo, ah, oo, Oo, ah, oo" It's a bather walking down Brighton Beach.
Big grains of sand are pebbles, are they not? So bigger isn't necessarily better.
And look at literature: Little Lord Fauntleroy. There was a lovely figure, wasn't he? But imagine lofty Lord Fauntleroy
"Dearest," he says to his mother.
"Oh don't call me that, you great lout." She said, "Look at you, six foot two, bursting out of your suit. You look like a prune stuck halfway down a knitting needle. You even frighten the great danes. How are we going to get grandfather's money? Look at you with your long coat."
You think bigger isn't better, is it Mr. Hopcroft?
Or take "Little Dolly Daydream, pride of Idado"
It's lovely, dainty and light.
Dumpy Dolly Daydream trying to bite a home.
It kills it doesn't it?
Bigger isn't necessarily better. And particularly so with diction. Particularly so with anything. If you take fruit. The choice fruit is surely the small fruit, isn't it?
If you're having a preson sentence, the little. Or a golf score. Or the size of a baby being born? There is a quality to smallness
So I say Mr. Hopcroft,surelyI've proved to you that you're absolutely wrong that bigger is better.
I say that smaller is much better, and certainly to do with the letter R. Big R's cannot be choice R's
Frank Muir 169b
