Comments on: Latin and English – again

By: Graham

Graham — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:59:06 +0000

An eminent Radio 3 Controller once said “We have a Pronunciation Adviser, not a Pronunciation Commissar”. He was referring to me, and presumably to some recommendation that the Unit had made under my leadership, that he didn’t agree with. His staff announcers were under strict instructions from the then Presentation Editor (Cormac Rigby) to follow our advice, and Cormac listened, on “snoop tapes” (whenever they opened their microphone, a recording of their words was started, as much for their protection against malicioius accusations from the public as anything else), to every word they said, sending comments when he thought it necessary.
Everyone in the Pronunciation Unit, from G M (”Elizabeth”) Miller onwards, has been accused at some point of saying ‘pronounciation’, but we have all strenuously denied it!

By: Michael Lamb

Michael Lamb — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:36:51 +0000

I did mean “But what could the BBC Pronunciation unit have done about it?” as a rhetorical question, and what is more, though you could hardly have known this, I was thinking of the one you led, thus making it even more of a rhetorical question. ‘Fraid I wouldn’t say the present arrangements attain to the status of a Pronunciation Unit. Or even a Pronounciation Unit!

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:18:25 +0000

Michael - I don't think the Pronunciation Unit could have done anything about it, and as the three eminent professors were not BBC employees in any sense, I don't think its members should even have attempted, and I'm sure they didn't. I wasn't really surprised about Maecenas (and I agree- /-iː-/ was perhaps a little over the top), but what brought me up short was the pronunciation /faɪˈlɪpaɪ/ for Philippi. I see that John Wells has /fɪˈlɪpaɪ/ as his first pronunciation, and /ˈfɪlɪpaɪ/ as the second, so by the 'long before a single consonant, short before two or more', rule, I suppose the initial -i- might be lengthened, but it still strikes me as odd, especially as both the boy's name Philip and Paul's Letter to the Philippians (stressed, true enough, on the second syllable) only ever have /ɪ/ in the first syllable. The Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation has /ˈfɪlɪpaɪ/ in first place.

By: Michael Lamb

Michael Lamb — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:06:44 +0000

Irritating, isn’t it? But what could the BBC Pronunciation unit have done about it? The melancholy news is that John Wells’s Longman Pronunciation Dictionary has maɪ ˈsiːn æs miː-, -əs ǁ -əs, and maɪˈsiːnæs is confirmed by the sound file on the dictionary CD for BrE (which sounds as if it is John’s own voice), but the AmE sounds like mᵻˈsiːnəs, which seems to reflect your miːˈsiːnæs. I think the first iː of that is a little over-specified for the traditional English, but agree with the –æs, so I would write (and still say) miˈsiːnæs, and no doubt you are as glad as I am to know that at least one American speaker is keeping the flag flying.