Phonograph Records of Freshmen Voice Tests Show Oddities and Sense of Humor of Yardlings

"Well . . . eh . . . I don't know just what I can say . . . eh . . . Is my time time up yet? . . . Gee, I can't think of anything . . . aw nuts!"

Such are some of the remarks transcribed on discs by Frederick C. Packard '16, assistant professor of English, who has recorded the voices of over 2500 Freshmen in the past three years.

Fountain pens, hats, pencils, gloves and serves are left in Memorial Hall by Yardlings who are embarrassed and confused by the novel experience of having to speak into a microphone.

The average Freshman this year, who is slightly below his predecessors in ability, is able to get through a two-minute script reading fairly easily, although the Bostonians can be distinguished by their characteristic treatment of the words "roof" and "aunt," and there is a surprisingly large number of variants in the pronunciation of "crude."

But it is during the one-minute period devoted to extemporaneous speech that he displays an extraordinary lack of ability, generally stammering and stuttering through such entirely confused phrases as "Memorial Hall tower is 14 feet square; and if it isn't fourteen feet square, it ought to be 13."

Five men blossomed forth in the poetry of John Masefield and Carl Sandburg, the former's "I Must Go Down to the Sea Again," being especially popular.

Discussions of the Yale game and Dick Harlow were very numerous, with international affairs and History 1 running a close second.

Four men, who swore they had not gotten together previously, told the tale of "the poor damn side-hill gopher animal, whose legs on one side were longer than those on another, and hence he had to walk on the side of a hill."

One ambitious student launched into a technical comparison of some of Einstein's mathematical theories with "Principia Mathematica," a joint work of Alfred N. Whitehead, professor of Philosophy, and Bernard Russell.

This crudite discussion was effectively neutralized by that of another man who was inspired to repeat the famous conversation reported to have taken place between Isadora Duncau, famous dancer, and George Bernard Shaw.

Sid Isadores, suggesting that G.B.S. have a child by her, "Think of what he would be with your mind and my body," whereupon the irrepressible Shaw retorted, "Yes, a think of what he would be with your mind and my body."