Dear BBC

29 Jan 2009 07:50 pm
karohemd: by LJ user gothindulgence (Bad Taste)
[personal profile] karohemd
If you're somewhere foreign, please ask a local how the name of the place is pronounced. Seriously, you make yourself look stupid.
No wonder Dalek jokes are popping up all over the place.

Date: 29/1/09 09:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] briggsy.livejournal.com
The first comment on the Have Your Say about Davos was enquiring about the input the daleks would have ... I don't think the pronunciation has much to do with it when you have bored office workers around ...

Date: 29/1/09 09:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] karohemd.livejournal.com
*shakes head*

Date: 29/1/09 09:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] the-elyan.livejournal.com
Yes - our General manager managed to refer to "a briefing from Davros" today in this quarterly update. Oops. I mentioned to him that he was apparently receiving info from an evil mastermind unleashing hideous killing machines on the universe, and fortunatel;y he laughed, rather than pulling my head off.

Date: 29/1/09 09:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] karohemd.livejournal.com
Oh dear. *giggles*

Date: 29/1/09 09:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] brrm.livejournal.com
I'm fairly sure I remember watching a programme that said they had pronounciation specialists on-hand for just this purpose. I guess they sacked them. :-/

Date: 29/1/09 09:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] karohemd.livejournal.com
That's what I remember, too. One would assume the BBC to be a bit more mediculous about things like that.

Date: 30/1/09 09:37 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] undyingking.livejournal.com
Davos is one of those uunfortunate places that, because rich Britons used to go there a lot on holiday, they felt they 'owned' and could pronounce however they wanted. It seems a few of them are still clinging on at the BBC.

What puzzles me more is that many of the BBC newsreaders still don't pronounce the US President's first name the way that he prefers to, instead having the second 'a' short. They've moved on from "barrack" at least, but it's still not right.

Date: 30/1/09 12:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] karohemd.livejournal.com
Bah.

At least the emphasis is on the second syllable which is an improvement.

Date: 1/2/09 08:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mr-malk.livejournal.com
I still can't get over the fact that that Powell bloke thinks that Colin rhymes with Conan.

Date: 1/2/09 08:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] karohemd.livejournal.com
*scratches head*
Oh, is this what sparked this Onion article (http://www.theonion.com/content/news/obama_disappointed_cabinet_failed)?

Date: 1/2/09 09:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mr-malk.livejournal.com
No, that's about Marvel honouring the revelation that Obama is a lifelong comics buff by giving him his own mini-series.

No, it's just that I always found it grating the way that former US Secretary of State Colin Powell always pronounces his name "Colen". Apparently his Mum still calls him Colin, and the pretentious pronunciation was a sort of nickname between him and some of his friends at first. Still, given the way I spell my name, I'm probably a bad one to be complaining about it!

Date: 2/2/09 10:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] undyingking.livejournal.com
You might too if your middle name was "theDestroyer".

Date: 2/2/09 12:45 pm (UTC)

Date: 30/1/09 12:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] madwitch.livejournal.com
Mine was entirely because I was skimming the headlines and misread it. But it's such a wonderful image. :-)

Date: 30/1/09 11:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] derekct.livejournal.com
Typical BBC. Then again they cannot do Scottish place names or Welsh place names right either at the best of times.

Date: 1/2/09 08:37 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mr-malk.livejournal.com
I hear what you're saying, but why should they care about the local pronunciation? We don't pronounce Paris the way the French do, nor München or the way you German chaps do. So what?

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