January 15, 2018
by Graham
1 Comment
I can claim no expertise in either the languages or the peoples of the area of the Bay of Bengal littoral. Today, 15 January 2018, the BBC has been highlighting the plight of the Rohingya people with a series of … Continue reading
November 10, 2017
by Graham
1 Comment
We appear to be in danger of completely losing what I consider to be a useful distinction between two phrases, one of which seems to be disappearing. Earlier this year, a cyclist, Charlie Alliston, riding an illegal bicycle (it had … Continue reading
May 24, 2017
by gpointon
2 Comments
In sorting through a box of miscellaneous papers the other day, I came across this letter, which the recipient, a BBC newsreader, gave me at some point (it is undated). I have replaced all names with initials, for obvious reasons. … Continue reading
May 9, 2017
by gpointon
3 Comments
Thank you Alec for alerting me to the number of mispronunciations American broadcasters have come up with for the new French president’s name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGgHy3BLloY Has anybody come up yet with any jokes about the meaning of his name? Perhaps a … Continue reading
April 12, 2017
by gpointon
0 comments
I had started to think that someone in the BBC hierarchy had issued an edict that the Syrian president’s name should be pronounced by all journalists in accordance with the Pronunciation Unit’s recommendation, with stress on the first syllable of … Continue reading
February 2, 2017
by gpointon
7 Comments
Whenever I hear a word that is new to me, or is used in a new way, I now take the precaution of looking in the OED before claiming in these posts that it is either a mistake or a … Continue reading
January 18, 2017
by gpointon
4 Comments
Following my last post, there seems to have been a spate of malapropisms perpetrated (not perpetuated!) by eminent people on radio and television. The leader of the populist British political party UKIP, Paul Nuttall, described Donald Trump as an anglophobe … Continue reading
January 11, 2017
by gpointon
0 comments
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given $9 million to a Cambridgeshire company for research into infectious diseases. Clearly, the company is not satisfied! Paul Kellam, the VP of Infectious Services for the company, Kymab, told BBC Look East … Continue reading
November 4, 2016
by gpointon
11 Comments
In a recent post, Jane Setter wrote about the possible future loss of the dental fricatives (/θ, ð/) from English, in favour of /f,v/. I also wrote not so long ago about the confusion between these two pairs of fricatives … Continue reading
September 12, 2016
by gpointon
8 Comments
I don’t usually watch the BBC’s science programme “The Sky at Night”, but last night I accidentally caught the beginning, and was hooked for the full half hour. What struck me, apart from the science, was the number of ways … Continue reading