Skirts and ankles

What precisely is the malady called "flat-foot"? I ask, not as fearing myself to be of the platypus tribe ("platypus" means, I believe, flat-footed) but in commiseration of the 70 per cent of English women who, it is affirmed, are in that condemnation — convicted by the short skirt.

Time was when a novelist might say "a tiny foot peeped out below her dress", or even "she displayed a neat-turned ankle". "But," writes "Moralist, M.D.", in the National Review, July number — "at the present time a woman is considered correct so long as she does not display her knees. Good or bad, this is due to the short skirt, and I know my place well enough to prevent my attacking the present fashion, which may be a chilly one, but it certainly allows freedom of movement and discourages dirt."

And so say all of us. Nevertheless —If on August 1, 1915 (Registration Day) every woman had been compelled by law to be snapshotted from behind as she walked and have her photograph attached to her registration card, the present fashion would have been killed by women themselves in two months from that date. Soon we should have learned in private conversations and women’s weekly newspapers that "really these skirts are very unbecoming".

Miss A. would say, "I can’t think how dear Mrs B. with such feet can wear a short skirt." Mrs C., "I am thankful I have not such wretched ankles as Miss D."

... Heading his article, "Deformed Feet in Women", this writer (summed up by one critic as "ungallant but candid") affirms that "Flat-foot exists in at least 70 per cent of women between 15 and 45."

And his conclusion:— Either lengthen the skirt and conceal it, or adopt a system of vigorous "foot-drill" to correct it. Frankly, I am puzzled. Here in Dunedin, looking so far as it is becoming in me to look at what the short skirt reveals, I see only well arched insteps, with ankles tidy and trim that sit neatly on the three-inch heels. Flat-foot cannot yet have invaded the antipodes, thanks be. —  Civis.

Maori pronunciation

Dear "Civis",—Will  you kindly give the correct pronunciation of "Marama," name of one of our hospital ships. Probably nine out of ten persons pronounce it with the accent on the second syllable instead of, as I believe it should be, with the first syllable only slightly accentuated.  Civis replies:— I have no Maori dictionary at hand, and should not feel bound by it if I had. In relation to the literary languages Maori is barbarous, and has no rights. We are not in the least bound to pronounce a Maori word as the Maoris pronounced it. We do not even pronounce a French word as the French pronounce it. Paris we say, sounding the s, not Paree with the Frenchman. English is mistress in her own house. Usage, slowly defining itself, determines the pronunciation of Maori place-names. No one gives "Oamaru" four syllables; "Wakatip" may displace "Wakatipu", as in the North Island "Wairarap" tends to displace "Wairarapa" — in the district itself I have heard even "Waidrap". And who shall say whether "Manuka" is metrically identical with "forsook her" or with "pannikin"? English tendency is to throw the accent back; hence "Marama", however the Maoris pronounced it, is more likely to end with the accent on the first syllable than on the second. — ODT, 22.9.1917.

 

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