January 30, 2008
by Graham
2 Comments
John Wells’ blog has been talking about the mispronunciation of ‘chorizo’ in a TV advert, in which the ‘z’ is pronounced /ts/, as if this were an Italian (or maybe German) word rather than either /θ/ or /s/, depending on … Continue reading
January 24, 2008
by Graham
12 Comments
In today’s blog, John Wells quotes a long piece by Eric Armstrong, a voice, speech and dialect coach. I have no complaint with any of the content of what he says, but towards the end, the pronoun he invariably uses … Continue reading
January 9, 2008
by Graham
0 comments
The re-spelling system used in the recent BBC Oxford Guide to Pronunciation introduces some dubious practices. For instance, the short vowel (John Wells’ FOOT vowel) is represented there by UU. This is counter intuitive, especially as the GOOSE vowel is … Continue reading
January 5, 2008
by Graham
4 Comments
Petr Roesel asks about the history of the Pronunciation Unit, and various other questions. The Unit had a predecessor body called the Advisory Committee on Spoken English, that was set up by the BBC’s first Director General, John Reith, in … Continue reading
January 3, 2008
by Graham
8 Comments
Petr Roesel asks if the pronunciation of Salman Rushdie that I gave as the “correct” one is an accurate reflexion of the pronunciation in Urdu. All words borrowed from one language into another, whether names or not, have to be … Continue reading