Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

Do We Teach English?, W. Roy Diem

The Gavel of Delta Sigma Rho

Not long ago I listened to a speech by the mayor of one of the. large cities of America. He gave a thoroughly interesting talk, one that hehi the rapt attention of an audience of six or eight hundred people. He was vigorous, fluent, concrete. But his language was marked by the syntax of a semi-literate person, though he is a college man. Such expressions as "he who I was the guest of" and "I was setting across the table from him" made one wince who was sensitive to correct English.

So far as I know, the mayor had never …