• Home
  • About
Linguism

Tag Archives: radio 4

October 31, 2018
by Graham
1 Comment

Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

The tragic events of last Saturday in Leicester, when the owner of Leicester City FC was killed in his helicopter shortly after taking off from the centre of the pitch following the match with West Ham United, have also highlighted … Continue reading →

Categories: Language, Names | Tags: bbc, english, family name, journalists, pronunciation, radio 4, reporters, speech | Permalink

October 16, 2018
by Graham
15 Comments

Khashoggi

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 Khashoggi, who according to Wikipedia was the brother of Mohamed Al-Fayed’s wife, and so uncle to … Continue reading →

Categories: Language, Names | Tags: bbc, family name, journalists, pronunciation, radio 4, reporters | Permalink

July 1, 2018
by Graham
8 Comments

TOWIE

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 →

Categories: Language | Tags: bbc, dialect, english, radio 4, speech | Permalink

February 8, 2018
by Graham
1 Comment

So, … again

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 →

Categories: General, Language | Tags: bbc, english, radio 4 | Permalink

February 3, 2018
by Graham
0 comments

BBC Today programme

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 →

Categories: Language, Names | Tags: bbc, journalists, pronunciation, radio 4, reporters, speech | Permalink

January 15, 2018
by Graham
1 Comment

Rohingya

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 →

Categories: Language, Names | Tags: bbc, place names, pronunciation, radio 4, spelling | Permalink

April 12, 2017
by gpointon
0 comments

A sad time

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 →

Categories: Language, Names | Tags: bbc, english, john humphrys, pronunciation, radio 4, reporters, speech | Permalink

February 2, 2017
by gpointon
6 Comments

Mistakes or Neologisms?

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 →

Categories: Language, Names | Tags: bbc, english, family name, journalists, pronunciation, radio 4, speech | Permalink

January 18, 2017
by gpointon
4 Comments

More malapropisms

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 →

Categories: Language | Tags: bbc, english, meaning, pronunciation, radio 4, spelling | Permalink

March 28, 2016
by gpointon
9 Comments

Palmyra

All three of the current standard pronouncing dictionaries of English give only one pronunciation for this historic Syrian place name – /pælˈmaɪrə/. I assume that this is still the recommendation of the Pronunciation Unit, and yet today, almost every commentator, … Continue reading →

Categories: Language | Tags: bbc, english, journalists, place names, pronunciation, radio 4, reporters | Permalink

← Older posts

Follow Linguism

  • @Linguism on Twitter
  • Linguism on Facebook

Books

The Routledge Student Guide to English Usage

Categories

  • Genealogy
  • General
  • Language
    • Chinese
    • French
    • Greek
    • Latin
    • Norwegian
    • Russian
    • Spanish
  • Music
  • Names

Recent Posts

  • Richard III – The Reunion
  • Perpetuate or perpetrate
  • The Queen’s English – literally
  • Accentism
  • How do you pronounce ‘GH’?
  • B(e)aring all
  • Flexible truths
  • Shielding
  • Course and Sauce
  • Coronavirus
  • Gumomics
  • Buttigieg
  • What is Rudy Giuliani’s job?
  • Cheops
  • Greta Thunberg

Recent Comments

  • Radio 3 (2)
    • Graham: Tim – I think that Robin must have recorded the majority of those fillers before my time at the BBC. He...
    • Tim Atkinson: You don’t recall those excellent little “fillers” Robin Holmes recorded, do you?...
  • Richard III – The Reunion (4)
    • Graham: Eric – do mineralogists call themselves minerologists, then, or say that the pronunciation...
    • Phillip Minden: Descriptive linguists can have preferences, just like a professional tea taster. And inside...
    • Eric Armstrong: A quick look on YouGlish reveals that UK speakers are much more likely to pronounce “genealogy” with...
  • Souls and Ghouls (22)
    • Graham: What a mistake to make! Of course I always knew that Birkenhead was in Cheshire, even if the Wirral is now...
    • Dee Congdon: I had to laugh when this article described Patricia Routledge as a Lancastrian. Birkenhead, where she...
  • The Queen’s English – literally (2)
    • Graham: Sidney – I’ve not only just read Fabricius (2007) but also gone back to the Harrington et al...
    • Sidney Wood: Fabricius (2007 in JIPA) found that virtually no-one born after 1945 acquired the old closer TRAP in RP....
  • Accentism (3)
    • Sidney Wood: Graham, that’s a neater way of putting it. No deliberate decisions to change. And which direction...
    • Graham: Sidney – I can’t say that my accent is the same now as it was fifty five years ago, just before I...
    • Sidney Wood: Graham, regarding the last paragraph. In the 1950s as my national (military) service was coming to an...
  • How do you pronounce ‘GH’? (2)
    • Graham: Good point! I wasn’t considering such compounds.
    • Laura Nass: also “stronghold” and “bighearted”
  • Slivers or Slithers (6)
    • Graham: Mink – I’m sure you’re right. Your phrase “phonetic overgeneralisation” is what...

Tags

accent afghanistan bbc cognitive culture dari david crystal dialect digital edinburgh england english family name French German haiti hertfordshire hospital intonation Italian jack windsor john humphrys john wells journalists Latin meaning moshtarak music norfolk orbital place names port-au-prince pronunciation punctuation radio 4 reporters rhythm scottish social standing speech spelling uttoxeter wymondham wymondley

Favourites

  • Alex's phonetic thoughts
  • BadLinguistics
  • Clinical Linguistics
  • David Crystal’s blog
  • Discourse and Function
  • English matters
  • Jack Windsor Lewis’s blog
  • John Maidment's Blog
  • John Wells’s phonetic blog
  • Kraut's English phonetic blog
  • Language Log
  • Languagehat
  • Learn that Language Now
  • Peter’s Pursuits

Links

  • Best Served Cold

Site managed by Best Served Cold | Theme: Yoko by Elmastudio

Top