Total despair at BBC mispronunciation
SepangBlue
Posts: 4,841 Forum Member
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This morning on the BBC Breakfast programme, they were running a piece about that sleepy-eyed furry animal that hangs upside down from tree branches and moves ever so slowly .. yes, I'm talking about the sloth.
The presenter, Charlie Stayt, caused me to choke on my corn flakes and yell 'No!' at the TV when he pronounced sloth as in 'cloth' rather than as in 'loath'. To add insult to injury his colleague on the sofa, Naga Munchetty, then proceeded to do exactly the same thing!
Come on people .. the Americans pronounce it as in 'cloth' but over here we're English for god's sake, and we have always pronounced it as in 'loath'.
This was the final straw following an increasing number of pronunciation aberrations in recent times. Another one that it is so commonly mispronounced for some reason and really grates when I hear it, is when an individual pronounces 'aitch' with an 'h' before it, rather than leaving the 'h' silent as it should be. It's probably a generation thing, but I'm sorry to say that when I hear a person speak in that way, they go down in my estimation as being uneducated.
Surely the BBC has a database of received word pronunciation that can be plundered by programme presenters, so why are things getting so sloppy these days?
The presenter, Charlie Stayt, caused me to choke on my corn flakes and yell 'No!' at the TV when he pronounced sloth as in 'cloth' rather than as in 'loath'. To add insult to injury his colleague on the sofa, Naga Munchetty, then proceeded to do exactly the same thing!
Come on people .. the Americans pronounce it as in 'cloth' but over here we're English for god's sake, and we have always pronounced it as in 'loath'.
This was the final straw following an increasing number of pronunciation aberrations in recent times. Another one that it is so commonly mispronounced for some reason and really grates when I hear it, is when an individual pronounces 'aitch' with an 'h' before it, rather than leaving the 'h' silent as it should be. It's probably a generation thing, but I'm sorry to say that when I hear a person speak in that way, they go down in my estimation as being uneducated.
Surely the BBC has a database of received word pronunciation that can be plundered by programme presenters, so why are things getting so sloppy these days?
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"I blame the mobile phone culture."
I was going to say something very similar. But basically couldn't bother to as it is such a pointless thread.
Ian.
But in the end, you managed to force yourself to do it?
Ian.
I don't think it's so much anti-BBC as anti-falling standards in spoken English.
True, the BBC were sticklers for correct pronunciation from the very beginning. But then the "intake," was mostly people who attended old-fashioned grammar schools/universities etc., they all sounded very much the same, hence, "BBC English."
Times change and to an extent, now, we get "style over substance," on occasions.
I agree with Thomo.
This forum has become cluttered with moaning over BBC stuff which just wouldn't even be an issue if it was ITV or Channel 4 or Sky....
Its moaning for the sake of it, its cluttering the forum and its getting to a stage of irritation and despair.
If it bothers you, why not just scroll down?
Responding, just drags the thread back top the top of the page.
In my opinion, too many people get a bit "touchy" over criticisms of the BBC. You won't stop it, as people think paying a licence fee gives them the right to criticise them and that's right, it does.
Pronunciations of words vary area to area, person to person, it doesn't really matter.
Actually, no, it doesn't, not to this extent.
People have this over inflated sense of self importance when it comes to the BBC like they're some sort of special case and open to being battered for miniscule things, its childish
So now you have reached the final straw... what next?
Not something we discuss often, but cannot say "sloth as in loath," is how "we" have always pronounced it.
But I am from Yorkshire (west riding), as a child lived in Essex, lived in Wales (few people there were "English for god's sake"), then Yorkshire (east riding), and now live in London.
Please could you tell me how we should be pronouncing all the words, not just "sloth," as in my experience there seems to be a lot of disagreement as to how we have always pronounced things. Thanks.
(I hope it is not "barth," would have been embarrassing to have gotten that one wrong all my life. And what if I have been saying "gotten" wrongly all my life, will thee be saying that next?)
How does he keep being employed.
I wasn't referring to regional dialects, merely the basic mispronunciation of a word so familiar to all of us.
Try to understand!
Charlie Stayt not knowing how to pronounce 'sloth' (I think it's one of those 'matter of opinion' pronounciatons anyway), isn't really in the same league.
We don't all have to speak like that chap on the Pathé Newsreels from the forties and fifties, that would be ridiculous in this day and age. Harry Enfield used to send it up gloriously with his Mr Cholmondley-Warner sketches! No, all I'm trying to do is to uphold correct grammar and syntax when we hear it used on frontline TV programmes. Future generations of English teachers could do with support from the media in this regard.
Anybody else fed up hearing 'off of' and 'return back', etc.? Just two further examples of the incorrect use of English .. not even anything to do with dialects either!
If you want to be lazy with our language, stick to text messaging!
Because the BBC think he's cute?
I don't think saying what you think of a programme provider gives anyone an "over-inflated sense of importance."
Of course it gives them the right to criticise.
It doesn't mean that anyone, least of all the BBC, has to take any notice of them andf the person making the comment will know that.
Quite often people will add a comment here and having got it off their chest, be prepared to move on.
Some might agree some won't, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll want to debate the point. It rarely is important enough to be worth the effort.
I blame the schools, for decades some have not bothered to teach proper grammar and correct spelling.
The excuse, has always been that "it restricts a child's development" or some such bollox.
What it actually means, some teachers couldn't be assed.
"In my day," if you came back with a written essay and there was just one grammatical error or a spelling mistake, you were made to write it all out again, correctly.
"You soon learned."
The odd "nukuler" slips through occasionally.
First prize goes to the Horror Channel announcer who thinks Keanu Reeves' first name is pronounce Keynow.:)
Regularly on Five Live I hear Wemberley and not Wembley. You'd expect sports' newsreaders to get that right.