There was much discussion in the 1930s about the decline of ‘Australian English’ and the need to improve the standard of speech. There were certainly class and gender issues related to these questions. It was observed in 1933 by the Sydney Morning Herald that boys, ‘especially at an early adolescence, appear to have a contempt for correctly modeled speech, which they regard as effeminate’. Even those who did speak well were under suspicion. The ‘clear-cut, well-modulated speech of a speaker of polished diction is regarded with suspicion, and even with hostility, by the majority, for the insufficient reason that he has the temerity to be different from the herd’.
Joy Damousi / The Australian Accent: ‘the detestable snuffle’
