This is the latest in a succession of publications dating back to the 1920s to put before the public the BBC’s recommendations on pronunciation.

The Advisory Committee on Spoken English, which functioned from 1926 to the outbreak of the Second World War, first published the results of its deliberations in short articles in Radio Times, before gathering them together in a series of booklets called Broadcast English. The first of these dealt with “words of doubtful pronunciation”, and subsequent volumes covered English, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish Place Names, British Family Names and Titles, and lastly, Foreign Place Names. The proposed final volume, on Foreign Personal Names, was never completed because of the outbreak of the Second World War.

(more…)