The Anglican Catholic Church of Canada L'église Catholique Anglicane du Canada The Diocesan Bishop Suffragan for Central Canada Suffragan for Atlantic Canada Assistant Bishop Assistant Bishop The Rt. Rev. Peter Wilkinson, OSG The Rt. Rev. Carl Reid The Rt. Rev. Craig Botterill The Rt. Rev. Robert Mercer, CR The Rt. Rev. Robert Crawley, SSC 209-25 Government Street 6541 Michelangelo Court 10 Granby Court 3 The Limes, St. Botolph’s Rd. c/o Miss Christine Crawley Victoria BC V8V 2K4 North Gower ON K0A 2T0 Halifax NS B3R 2M7 Worthing, West Sussex 2689 Selwyn Road 250-385-4444 613-489-2538 902-444-5326 BN11 4HY UK Victoria BC V9B 3L2
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] 011-441-903-620-772 DIOCESAN CIRCULAR – November 2011 Speaking Neatly ROGER SCRUTON American speech, like English speech, used to sparkle. The focus of our educational systems on popular culture, political correctness, and the cult of self-esteem has had two consequences for everyday speech. First, young people prefer to remain silent rather than risk an opinion. Secondly, when they do talk, it is in an outpouring, in the belief that one person's language is as good as any other's. Bon mots, aphorisms, insightful quotations, nuggets of wisdom, or even ordinary apt remarks form only a tiny part of their conversation. American speech, like English speech, used to sparkle. The dialogues invented by Henry James are scintillating, alert to implications, never redundant or blunt. Their stylized air is exaggerated, if at all, only in the cause of art.