April 10, 2011
by Graham
9 Comments
Robert Bridges (1844-1930) became the Poet Laureate (largely an honorary position under the Crown) in 1913. I think that his poetry is mostly forgotten nowadays, and arguably his greatest claim to poetic fame is his championing of Gerard Manley Hopkins. … Continue reading
April 6, 2011
by Graham
5 Comments
I was taken aback to hear Anthony Horowitz, scriptwriter for many TV programmes, including Midsomer Murders, Foyle’s War, and Poirot as well as many children’s books, use the pronunciation /ˈleɪpəl/ in an interview Saturday Live, BBC Radio 4’s Saturday morning … Continue reading
March 12, 2011
by Graham
5 Comments
This word has caused more trouble than most when trying to decide on a pronunciation. The BBC’s pre-war Advisory Committee on Spoken English managed to change its mind twice in the course of ten years before giving up on a … Continue reading
February 21, 2011
by Graham
3 Comments
Eric Hayman has commented that BBC newsreaders and journalists are vacillating between /bɑːˈhreɪn/ (where /h/ may represent either a glottal fricative or a velar fricative) and /bɑːˈreɪn/, leaving the orthographic ‘h’ unpronounced. I cannot believe that the Pronunciation Unit has … Continue reading
November 14, 2010
by Graham
5 Comments
Still watching TV programmes that I’ve previously recorded, I’ve just caught up with two episodes of the BBC series on the Pre-Raphaelites. One of the experts used in the programmes was Alison Smith, Curator at Tate Britain. She had two … Continue reading
October 18, 2010
by Graham
4 Comments
In last week’s In Our Time, (Radio 4, Thursday 14 October) one of Melvyn Bragg’s guests was Tim Blanning, Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at Cambridge University The discussion was about the Sturm und Drang movement in 18th Century … Continue reading
September 28, 2010
by Graham
1 Comment
Dr Jonathan Foyle, presenting a BBC 4 TV programme on the public buildings of the north of England, repeatedly pronounced the Athenaeum in Liverpool as /æθəˈneɪəm/, although his interviewees, members of the club, used the more anglicized /æθəˈniːəm/. I attributed … Continue reading
September 18, 2010
by Graham
15 Comments
Catching up on some TV programmes recorded while I’ve been away, I’ve inevitably found some usages to comment on. First a common confusion of two words, but this time in the less usual way: prostate and prostrate. It’s quite common … Continue reading
July 26, 2010
by Graham
1 Comment
Now that my far-from-expert piano playing is no longer needed for a few weeks, I’ve been catching up on reading the various phonetic blogs I usually follow, and have found my name mentioned a couple of times. In particular by … Continue reading
April 22, 2010
by Graham
4 Comments
I’ve just been listening to “In Our Time” on BBC Radio 4 (the latest one available as a podcast, 22 April 2010), and was struck yet again how inconsistent English speakers are in their treatment of Latin names. The discussion … Continue reading