Dear Editor,
I can no longer constrain myself as this morning (Dec 9) was the limit. The young lady who read the 7 o’clock news on 102.5 FM continued with her atrocious pronunciation of words which by now should be familiar to persons on the air. This morning she used the word ‘dispension’ for ‘dispensation’ in reference to Minister Broomes’ very ardent defence of the budget proposals for miners. Further on in the news she made another inexcusable blunder in mispronouncing ‘Bogota’ in the item about the heinous assault and murder of a seven year old girl in Colombia. She was also having trouble with the word ‘intermittent’ this morning as well.
Last week she stumbled badly over the word ‘Canberra’ in news about Australia and earlier on she pronounced ‘Asi’ in Asian as in ‘assinine’. But she is not bereft of fellow offenders. A few months ago the other young lady that brought the morning news was reading an item about protesters occupying a wildlife refuge somewhere in middle America, and believe it or not, she said that they were occupying a wildlife ‘refugee’. Another young lady with a smooth silken voice, on the same morning news, a year or two ago said that persons had ‘arrived to’ on numerous occasions, instead of ‘arrived at’. I know that arriving connotes moving to something or somewhere and this must have confused her somewhat but it was the consistency with which it was used. Please, Editor, do not think that I am unfairly targeting these young females as their male counterparts are not without sin, but ladies are heard more often on the news on this station in the mornings.
And my final pique, for now, is the use, or rather misuse, of the phrase ‘with a view’. Ministers of the government, who should certainly know better, newscasters and public commentators in the print and broadcast media, are slowly corrupting this rather expressive term in our language, by saying and writing ‘with a view of’ and not ‘with a view to’ . The late President Hoyte was masterful in his use of this phrase, which at first glance appears to be unorthodox English, as ‘to’ is followed here by a participle (eg, with a view to seeing it through), and not by the infinitive. But I would be happy to have this adjudicated upon by a student of the language.
This bad pronunciation with accents on the wrong syllables of words and the poor reading where items flow into each other without a pause, have continued unabated from the tenure of office of the last government. So, is there no surcease for the listening public (and I dare say, our readers) from this blatant assault on our country’s official language? Is it that the news scripts are badly written or is it that the newscasters do not take time to read them and make whatever corrections are to be made, before going on air? We have amongst us the Rovin Deodats, the Maggie Lawrences, the Ron Robinsons and the Joyce Jonases, to mention some of the well-known names on radio, all of whom I am sure can be called upon by NCN (National Communications Network) to tutor these persons, for they certainly are in dire need of this form of remedial assistance. Failing these, however, are our retired teachers of English who could be recruited to monitor the national radio (and television) over a period of time, to note date, time, and programme on which these gaffes appear, which so continually sully our airwaves.
Yours faithfully,
Lennox Applewhaite
