Pronunciation

Sarnia

Alex Scott, the former Arsenal and England footballer and now an excellent sports presenter has been criticised for not pronouncing the 'g' at the end of words. She is an East End girl born and bred, so how is she supposed to speak? Lord Digby Jones was so rude about the way Alex talks during her coverage of the Olympics that she stepped down from her presenting job. Thankfully she was back doing her job on last night's Olympic Games coverage, effectively sticking 2 fingers up at pompous Digby. Good for her!

I agree with you, but it seems that Priti Patel is fair game for doing exactly the same.

Just got back from the Royal Free Hospital, where, a young man was directing people at the car park entrance. As I rolled my window down he asked "what d'you want?" As I was in the car park queue I thought that was obvious so wasn't sure what he was getting at. I asked what he meant. He then asked if I was dropping off or parking! If he had asked that in the first place I'd have had a clue!
My point is that it is not only accents that are annoying but using the wrong wording too!
Rant over - feel better for that!

I don't think you were missAdventure.But anyway, there is a difference in having a disability, and the 'common, lazy way' that SOME commentators and presenters/advert voice overs speak.That is NOT a disability.Thats just slatternly habits.

Yes I fed the same, it annoys me on The Voice when Emma Willis says twenny instead of twenty etc. Queens English should be spoken properly on TV!

Years ago there were places called Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and so on, then they appeared much frequently on the news and became Afghanistarn, Pakistarn, and so on. Then there seemed to be a competition among news people to elongate the aaarrn bit even more. I switched off.

Nannan2

I don't think you were missAdventure.But anyway, there is a difference in having a disability, and the 'common, lazy way' that SOME commentators and presenters/advert voice overs speak.That is NOT a disability.Thats just slatternly habits.

Well, perhaps I was thinking wrongly about what I was thinking.
Thanks for putting me right.
P.S. I still disagree.

Local accents...everywhere is different Saying that I would get so annoyed by Americans....luved there for 3 years and worked in UK with for 14 years.. pronouncing the t in my name as a d.

Dialect is a different matter- who wouldn't agree that the wonderful Brenda Blethyn as Vera just would not be the same if she spoke 'the Queens English'? But commentating, News, adverts, etc, No. Let us hear proper pronunciation please.

Mogsmaw I was unaware that ‘off of’ came from Renfrew and I would not want to upset any folk from there. It still sounds clunky to me.

As I said I like dialects/accents and want them to continue.

I think 'haitch' is from Australia if I'm not mistaken, so Neighbours and the like will have influenced that.

On our local radio station we have a presenter who says, 'No'in'um' instead of Nottingham which drives my friend mad.

On the other hand I've read that Americans have noticed that children are speaking with an English accent due to Peppa Pig so it works both ways.

I think we’ve had a post like this before. Most of the mis-pronunciations, to my mind, are just lazy speech and shouldn’t happen on the radio or TV.

Meet one is ‘sarfnoon’ for ‘this afternoon’.

Maybe someone on here can help me with this one. At the moment I hear the word isolation pronounced by TV presenters, newsreaders even our Scottish leader, ‘ice’ olation’ . I would say ‘aye’solation.
Any views?

I absolutely agree. This is not about regional accents, which are lovely, just lazy speech. Every time I hear letters missed out I'd like to scream

I have no problem with dialects and accents. I come from North Bucks and have a real London twang. It’s when people who are quite well spoken say twenny. I won’t mention names but it’s a fashion celebrity I follow and she says it constantly.
I certainly wasn’t moaning about regional dialects.

Most annoying for me is the dropped 't' often done for effect as it is believed to sound cool. It may be a natural way of speech for some but it is also used in a pretentious way. I love regional dialects but can't always understand them.

I don’t mind accents at all but the amount of people on tv lately who can’t seem to (or refuse to) pronounce ‘th’ and use ‘v’ or ‘f’ instead. I can’t believe their parents and teachers didn’t correct it as they were growing up saying “wiv”, “fink”, “somefink” & “bruvver”.
I have a 3 year old grandson who pronounces words better than some of these adults ? albeit with a midlands accent…

It really annoys me when commentators pronounce sports personalities surnames and put 'y'' on the end........Wrighty for Wright, Smithy for Smith!

Bellanono I think JRM comes from the dark ages ?!

Apologies….Bellanonna!

Yes, we can all agree that language evolves. However none of us know how many of the forms we hear today will become the standard and how many will simply be the fashion of the 2020s and disappear again.

Teaching any language to foreign students, ,most teachers tend to stick to a more "correct" language than they might use when just chatting to friends.

No-one who has learned their English in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Vienna of Cologne will have the slightest chance of understanding "Come oan, get aff, hen" or anything else said in broad Glesga'

My DH, a non-native English speaker couldn't fathom what a taxi driver from Paisley was asking us at Glasgow Airport - which really made me wonder how he would cope in Glasgow.

Short answer - he didn't - I having been born and bred outside Paisley did all the talking and I still do not fathom what was so incomprehensible about my conversation with the taxi driver, as Scots, as spoken in Paisley, is nothing like Glaswegian and far, far easier to understand, being nearer to RP.

My sister reduced herself and me to giggles by saying, "Shall we have a wee cae-ik wi' oor coffee?" and even that had to be translated for him to "Shall we have a little cake with our coffee?"

Boris annoys me when he says ter instead of to.
Also Bradly Walsh always says was instead of correctly saying were. I am a big fan of the Chase, but find myself waiting for his incorrect grammar.

As long as it is not grammatically incorrect like could of instead og could have I don’t mind too much even though I do laugh at my partners Yorkshire bath not Barth accent.

Being rather deaf I need people to enunciate and speak more slowly, whatever their accent.

My bugbear is people who begin a sentence with "So" and when people say, "I was like"; "he was like"; " we WAS all like, down the pub". Why not say "We were all at the pub" ? Just me feeling my age I suppose. When I was young the word "like" was used to show a preference, as in "I like ice cream"

I'm a Birmingham girl born and bred, but I was taught (in the 70s) to speak propERly.

My accent is generally undetectable although my 'Brummie' accent does creep out occasionally but I do still pronounce my words correctly.

@grannygrumps1... the girl to whom you refer is 'Lady Leshur' (?my spelling), a 'rapper' from Birmingham, with a pretty broad accent.

@lovebeigecardigans1955... I totally agree, there are so many words in the English language that are lazily mispronounced, place names being something that makes my teeth curl.

One of the worst culprits of this is Eamonn Holmes. Yes, he has a Northern Irish accent but it's just sheer idleness saying Birminam and No'n'am instead of Birmingham and Nottingham. Every time I see him on TV and hear him say 'Birminam', I cringe and want to scream "It's Birmingham not Birminam you dullard!".

Yes, we have a variety of accents and dialects in the UK but there really is NO excuse for idle mispronunciation.