October 16, 2018
by Graham
6 Comments
Until ten days or so ago, the only person with the name Khashoggi who was well-known was the rather dodgy Saudi Arabian businessman, Adnan JKhashoggi, who according to Wikipedia was the brother of Mohamed Al-Fayed’s wife, and so uncle to … Continue reading
July 14, 2018
by Graham
0 comments
My regular correspondent in Thailand has sent me the following, which includes IPA script. I hope that it doesn’t suffer the same fate as other of my posts, where the IPA has become corrupted over time. “Good old BBC. No … Continue reading
July 1, 2018
by Graham
6 Comments
For anyone reading this who is not familiar with British TV, the heading is the acronym for the programme “The Only Way Is Essex”, a reality show featuring natives of that county. I have to admit that this is not … Continue reading
February 8, 2018
by Graham
1 Comment
So, if any of my readers in the UK, or who can otherwise access BBC Radio 4, have not yet discovered John Finnemore, can I suggest that they start with the last in the current series of “John Finnemore’s Souvenir … Continue reading
February 3, 2018
by Graham
0 comments
On the Today programme this morning on BBC Radio 4, Nick Robinson interviewed my successor in the Pronunciation Unit, Catherine Sangster (who is now in charge of pronunciation for the Oxford Dictionaries) about the problems of pronunciation. This piece arose … Continue reading
January 27, 2018
by Graham
2 Comments
There was a lot of discussion in the early days of broadcasting about what the audience should be called. The first issues of Radio Times regularly placed the word listener in inverted commas, wherever it appeared, although there are exceptions, … Continue reading
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 14, 2017
by Graham
4 Comments
This post has very little to do with language. My opinion of Emma Dabiri, mentioned in my last post, has nose-dived since I wrote that. I’ve now watched the last of the series of ‘Britain’s Lost Masterpieces’, which featured a … 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
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