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BBC Presenters

Posted: March 12th, 2019, 5:36 pm
by Rhyd6
I am not a pedant, lets get that out of the way first. I often think in English and speak in Welsh and vice versa so admit to the odd slip up now and again but I don't expect Laura Koensburg to come out with "it was not nothing" as she did this morning or a lunchtime newsreader when presented with a new topic on her screen to say that the accused had "pled" guilty. Where is John Snagge when you need him? Yes I know he popped his cloggs in the nineties but you know what I mean.

R6

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 12th, 2019, 5:48 pm
by Gaggsy
I heard that this morning on the radio from LK. I had a little double-take but then she put it in context.
From memory she said something like "It was not nothing, it was not something". It kind of made sense at the time.

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 12th, 2019, 5:50 pm
by kiloran
Rhyd6 wrote: Where is John Snagge when you need him? Yes I know he popped his cloggs in the nineties but you know what I mean.
R6

[pedant mode]
Popped his clogs.
Not popped his cloggs
[/pedant mode]

Anyway, what's wrong with being a pedant?

--kiloran

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 12th, 2019, 10:39 pm
by scotia
kiloran wrote:
Rhyd6 wrote: Where is John Snagge when you need him? Yes I know he popped his cloggs in the nineties but you know what I mean.
R6

[pedant mode]
Popped his clogs.
Not popped his cloggs
[/pedant mode]

It appears that someone else has popped their cloggs:- :) https://www.drapersonline.com/news/excl ... 87.article

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 12th, 2019, 11:29 pm
by Rhyd6
Iesu Annwyl, OK "popped eu glocsiau or by farw if you prefer. Either way I've got dyslexic fingers.

R6

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 14th, 2019, 10:07 am
by bungeejumper
Hmmm, agree with Gaggsy on this one. ;) "It was not nothing" sounds like a reasonable sort of gambit for an argument, as long as you follow through with an assertive pitch as to what it actually was. Or alternatively, a sense that the world had been expecting nothing, but that what it got was indeed something.

I went fishing the other day, and just for once I didn't catch nothing. I came home with an absolute monster of a head cold. :lol:

BJ

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 14th, 2019, 3:53 pm
by scotia
bungeejumper wrote:I went fishing the other day, and just for once I didn't catch nothing. I came home with an absolute monster of a head cold. :lol:

Its a good job you didn't catch a brown trout. The season doesn't open until tomorrow. When I'll be attempting not to catch nothing.

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 14th, 2019, 9:36 pm
by AleisterCrowley
scotia wrote:
bungeejumper wrote:I went fishing the other day, and just for once I didn't catch nothing. I came home with an absolute monster of a head cold. :lol:

It's a good job you didn't catch a brown trout. The season doesn't open until tomorrow. When I'll be attempting not to catch nothing.


Preferable to a Mersey Trout...

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 15th, 2019, 12:20 am
by dave559
Rhyd6 wrote:a lunchtime newsreader when presented with a new topic on her screen to say that the accused had "pled" guilty.


But pled is a perfectly cromulent word, however! ;)

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 15th, 2019, 10:16 pm
by scotia
scotia wrote: The season doesn't open until tomorrow. When I'll be attempting not to catch nothing.

The brown trout fishing season has started with gale force winds, lashing rain and some hail to liven up affairs, all combined with sub-arctic temperatures. I'm afraid I cannot confirm that I haven't caught nothing.

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 15th, 2019, 11:15 pm
by kiloran
scotia wrote:
scotia wrote: The season doesn't open until tomorrow. When I'll be attempting not to catch nothing.

The brown trout fishing season has started with gale force winds, lashing rain and some hail to liven up affairs, all combined with sub-arctic temperatures. I'm afraid I cannot confirm that I haven't caught nothing.

Seems like our scottish summer has arrived early this year.

--kiloran

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 16th, 2019, 11:23 am
by scotia
Returning to the original grouch concerning slipping standards at the BBC (since the weather today is too appalling to venture forth on the loch), I understand that Radio Announcers no longer wear Dinner Jackets when reading the evening news. I do hope that what they wear is not nothing.

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 16th, 2019, 12:06 pm
by UncleEbenezer
scotia wrote:I do hope that what they wear is not nothing.

I find your obsession with such things disturbing.

What they wear is immaterial.

Glo''-als

Posted: March 17th, 2019, 3:19 pm
by bungeejumper
I've been struck by the recent spread of glottal stops on TV, which I shall hereinafter refer to as glo''-als. And particularly by their inconsistent usage among quite senior presenters.

It's not that glo''-als particularly offend me as such - I was, after all, born and raised in post-war Norf Lunnon, where the Hertfordshire air was rapidly becoming thick with the tones of bombed-out east enders arriving after the blitz. No, what depresses me is that presenters seem to think it trendy these days to glo''-alise some words, but not others.

Example: "Twenty little bottles".

You will probably pronounce that phrase with all six Ts clearly audible. Although the last two pairs of Ts will probably be no more than a slight click in your cheeks, rather than the carefully toothy "t" of a postwar librarian.

My Norf Lunnon contemporaries would have said "Twenny Li''-or bo''-aws", although they wouldn't have got into my grammar school like that. But the new breed of announcers say something quite different. "Twenny Littill bo''-aws". About as mixed up as you can get.

In fairness, I imagine that this is an ethnic thing, and that it's probably as Caribbean as Idris Elba saying "haitch". (Another peculiar thing, but that's another story.) And yes, inclusivity in the media is important, and yes, language is constantly in flux, and that's probably a good thing unless you're a Frenchman trying to get a grip on the English spoken language. But would it be too much to ask for a bit of consistency?

Sigh.

BJ

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 17th, 2019, 5:51 pm
by vrdiver
UncleEbenezer wrote:What they wear is immaterial.

If their raiments were immaterial, then their attire might not be not nothing to the casual observer.

Re: Glo''-als

Posted: March 17th, 2019, 6:19 pm
by GoSeigen
bungeejumper wrote:[...] the English spoken language. But would it be too much to ask for a bit of consistency?

Sigh.


Consistency in the gloriously anarchic English language?

That's like suggesting the taste of wine should be standardised...



GS

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 17th, 2019, 7:30 pm
by tjh290633
A bit like the question: "Do you know the Queen's English?".

Apostrophe or elision?

TJH

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 17th, 2019, 8:46 pm
by scotia
tjh290633 wrote:A bit like the question: "Do you know the Queen's English?".
Apostrophe or elision?
TJH

That's interesting - my first thought was that the rule regarding its and it's could be applied, but we have a problem with the plural. My second thought was to ban the use of an elision, but on another board I have referred to the ha'penny, which was never (in my hearing) called a halfpenny. I suppose the correct solution lies in the context. The mother of the Queen was Scottish, so the statement must clearly be possessive.

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 18th, 2019, 11:25 am
by stewamax
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..." [Dickens]

Laura Kuenssberg's "It was not nothing, it was not something" was using this not uncommon and not usually misunderstood English figure of speech as a way of saying "it was not completely insignificant but neither was it a matter of great importance". (Dickens was stressing the extremes rather than the middle ground, but the idea is similar.)

And re OP, a yw ieithoedd tramor yn cael eu caniatau ar y fforwm hwn?

Re: BBC Presenters

Posted: March 18th, 2019, 11:46 am
by UncleEbenezer
stewamax wrote:And re OP, a yw ieithoedd tramor yn cael eu caniatau ar y fforwm hwn?

That's not foreign on this island. Ĉi tio estas fremda - al ĉiuj!