The magic of English

According to the latest announcement from the Australian Minister for Territories, there will be a University in Papua- New Guinea “within the next five years”—which, as the sonorous Parliamentary phrase has it, “will be a step in the right direction.”

OR it might even, as the latest jargon has it, be a “status symbol”. The mere fact of having a university is going to prove some thing to someone.

But let’s hope that when the uni versity is a going concern, they won’t loose upon it the experts who are teaching English to the men of the Pacific Islands Regiment, be because if they do there’s likely to be the biggest flap in academic circles since the Renaissance.

I’m all for making the language of instruction Pidgin, myself—the First University of its kind in the world—and we’d at least then be able to understand the graduates.

Recently a disturbed Sydney watchmaker sent us this letter, which he had received, with a watch, from a private in the PIR: Dear Sir—l will send my watch prees you can sang new spelling strong and sang water proof you sange. If you like money send your letter to me I can send your money. The tame scourd is to slow I want you sange new one and of my talk your friend—Etc.

The watchmaker couldn’t under stand more than half of it nor, for the matter of that, could we. But it was a simple enough case. We advised him to make his own diag nosis of the watch’s ailment, esti mate the cost of fixing same, and advise our Esperanto-speaking friend of the damage before proceeding with the work.

A couple of weeks ago we had another letter from another PIR man—a corporal this time. The words were in English, but not one of them had any relation to another, even when you read it backwards, forwards, sideways or vertically. We could only conclude that he had copied a list of words from a Top Secret military code-book, or got them off a packing case or the jam tin labels in the mess hut. And the week before that we had an appeal from a national magazine who had a letter from a PIR man that they couldn’t make head or tail of. (Nei ther could we.)

It all reminded me of the c story that used to be told in N( Guinea of the illiterate Scandinavi sailor who had been washed ashc from his ship and lived on to 1 come a planter.

He couldn’t write, so had a t( rible time getting his stores frc the faraway Big Firm, but on o occasion when he was in town, saw his first typewriter and was f; cinated. He wanted to know h( it worked so the supersalesm rolled a piece of paper into t machine and said: “You just s what you want to say and tap t keys like this The planter bought one and to it home. When he wanted to se: an order to the store he’d put in t paper, talk to the magic machi (“One case tinned meat—one cad stik tobac—etc”) and pound aw at the keys at the same time. Th he’d fold up this “pass” and send off to the town by runner. Po bloke could never understand wl he never got any goods back.

That seems to be what ailed o corporal friend—belief in the i fallible magic of words. They we European words—hey presto, ai old European should be able understand what they meal Trouble with us was that we did] know what he said to himself he wrote them down.

A couple of months ago we g a letter from a Tolai, civilian tyj this one. In a mixture of Pidg and English, which we could unde stand, he asked for a Farmer’s Sto catalogue—which order we hasten! to fulfil—and “one small bottle i magic for girls”. Not having hi pitches, warlocks or dispensers < love-potions on the staff for son time now, this we were regretful unable to supply.

In the course of a year we g dozens of inquiries from Australh firms who cannot understand tl letters sent to them by Papua-Ne Guineans and other South Pacif Islanders.

And such is the sentimental a tachment of ordinary mainlac

ralians for “the native boys up a” that they pretty nearly burst am in their eagerness to oblige.

European who went about his -order business with the same happy abandon would no doubt back a stern please-send-remit :-with-order. But nothing is too h trouble for the people whom all think of as “Fuzzy-wuzzy Is.” [though they don’t know it there distinct commercial advantage heir naive approach to mail ring. When they have all had advantage of (here we go i), “tertiary education,” and writing letters with a university iur, they’ll just have to take their ce with the rest of us. They Id be warned before it is too —Judy Tudor.