Commentators pronouncing things "wrong"

[bmck 117]

I do find the standard of commentators English getting poorer and their are plenty of regional dialect instances that get on my nerves, the worst for me being pronouncing silent H's and dropping the ones that should be pronounced coupled with using "an" instead of "a" - eg "an 'otel" instead of "a hotel". They do the latter on BBC news too, but it's just poor knowledge of English and the standard should be much higher on national news.

 

i've no idea idea why people get annoyed by this. its absolutely nothing to do with a poor knowledge of english. nothing at all. there's no 'higher' standard. linguistically, there is absolutely nothing to choose between them. all it is, is prestige and taste. no information is lost - you just associate it with common people. when you take a sample of english speakers and let them hear dfferent accents reading the news, say, they'll think a cockney is less trustworthy than someone who uses RP. however, you take it to the other side of the world english speakers, who have no local associations built up, and they cant make any such judgements. no such thing as correct pronunciation, just normative pronunciation.

[Super_Ally 0]

Cheers for that Barry

 

Annoying pronunciation it is then! :devil:

 

Just don't see the need to speak in a normal English accent all night but randomly slip in funny lisps and accents when pronouncing the odd word.

[calscot 0]

While I see what you're saying, there are still certain "rules" that in formal English are being broken. If you don't have any rules, language just diverges and no-one understands each other. If you don't learn the rules of a 2nd language, you will struggle to understand and be understood.

 

Otherwise I'd be able to get a scientific paper published in txt spk.

 

There is definitely the structural part of the language which we get taught at school and you are saying, for example that the BBC web site could miss out many punctuation rules because it's more normal.

 

There is definitely a certain standard to be met for clear communication which is more important when that is your whole purpose. To me, the BBC have a duty to give a higher standard English.

 

The "normative" is not always how everyone speaks, it can reflect the domain you in and in news media, the normative is to speak a more academic level of your language.

 

I'm sorry but while to a certain extent you are right, you're taking it so far as to make language farcical.

 

The example I gave, definitely breaks known rules of English and while I understand what they are saying, I find someone who is a professional communicator breaking obvious language rules quite jarring - like someone singing out of key. And I would find that so, no matter which letter they dropped or erroneously added.

 

It might not be that important but in any walk of life, it is more aesthetic and impressive if you have less obvious flaws in what you actually do.

 

I may have a certain snobbery here, but there is also an ironic snobbery in telling someone they are being too snobby.

[calscot 0]

PS Erroneously dropping letters or adding them in any language, definitely shows that you don't have a full grasp of it. To me you are obviously and completely wrong there.

[calscot 0]

sorry to delve into sociolinguistic mode, but there's no such thing as correct pronunciation of anything. it's just normative. for instance, we tend to think of bbc english as 'correct' pronunciation when it was really just chosen as it was a southern-english dialect - the dialect of the rich folk in that area. everything's accent - there's no accent-less. so, there's no correct pronunciation. there is, however, annoying pronunciation, which is being discussed here!

 

I think here your talking about "Received Pronunciation" or RP which I don't consider "correct" English. It's just an accent that was considered desirable at the time as it reflected the upper classes.

 

It has far too many diphthongs to even approximate the spelling of most words and sometimes, IMO, sounds a bit like a speech defect.

[Gribz 919]

So you're saying we should say:

 

Royal Madrid

Athletic Madrid

Sporting of Corona

Spanish (Espanol)

AS Rome

Pariss Saint Germain

Ajax (as in the floor cleaner)

Turin (Torino)

International Milan

Florence (Fiorentina)

Venice (Vinezia)

Naples (Napoli)

Baloney (Balogna)

Keltic (Celtic)

Irish (Hibernian)

Inverness Scottish Thistle (ICT)

 

 

You dont half pick out things to be argumentative and your post is bizarre.

 

You've got what I said WAY wrong. Your infact the one translating team names when I said we shouldnt. We should pronounce them as we say it, not translate.

 

For eg...Real Madrid:- We say 'real' and not 'ray-al'

 

Why would we transfer Caledonian to Scottish?? Are you saying Caledonian isnt a word in our language?

Edited November 29, 2008 by Gribz

[calscot 0]

It's Latin for Scotland dontcha know...

[calscot 0]

PS Sorry if Latin is your language...

[calscot 0]

You dont half pick out things to be argumentative and your post is bizarre.

 

You've got what I said WAY wrong. Your infact the one translating team names when I said we shouldnt. We should pronounce them as we say it, not translate.

 

For eg...Real Madrid:- We say 'real' and not 'ray-al'

 

Why would we transfer Caledonian to Scottish?? Are you saying Caledonian isnt a word in our language?

 

What about the Italian names? And actually I say Ree-al not reel... the thing is I now can't help the "Baloney" title, it's irresistible...