So here we are once more in February, a month loved by romantics and restaurateurs, and loathed by radio announcers, 98 percent of whom cannot get their tonsils around the month's name.
They may have no problem with remote villages in Kazakhstan, or the names of eight-foot Tanzanian basketball players, but give them February, and it comes out as "Feberry" or "Fooburry" or "Febebbery" or "Febrewery" (Freudian slip).
The golden-voiced Bill Gilmour, a notable eccentric even in a field not renowned for normalcy, had a solution for unpronounceable words. He advised brushing a hand across the lips. And he demonstrated:
"Violence broke out today in the Indonesian village of SWOOSH! when three gunmen..."
Bill explained: "Listeners will think there was some brief interference on their radio, and you can continue with the newscast."
It's February. However you say it. Expect a lot of swooshing.
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Our father once complained that a certain announcer couldn't pronounce his own name. But we knew why: it wasn't his real name.
ReplyDeleteSadly, when I tune in to radio news or weather these days I most expect to hear:
ReplyDeleteWords ending in "ing" pronounced rhyming with "een" - a frequent crime of sluggish enunciation..
and the term "begs the question" constantly misapplied, when "raises the question" would be correct.
Radio has utterly gone to the dogs, with the dumbing down of the once "Top Dog" the most startling example.
With sad chagrin - Lantzvillain