Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Loyalty and pronunication:

I love the United States of America. I love my country’s flag. I love my country’s language. I promise:
1. That I will not dishonor my country’s speech by leaving off the last syllable of words.
2. That I will say a good American “yes” and “no” in place of an Indian grunt “um-hum” and “nup-um” or a foreign “ya” or “yeh” and “nope.”
3. That I will do my best to imporve American speech by avoiding loud, rough tones, by enunciating distinctly, and by speaking pleasantly, clearly and sincerely.
4. That I will learn to articulate correctly as many words as possible during the year.

Pledge encouraged by American Speech Committee 1918; cited in John Algeo in “Issues in the History of Humansitic Linguistics; The response of English teachers to language variety,” in Linguistics and the University Education, Michigan State University 1980.