Shhhhhh ...

It’s happening more and more, that shibboleth issue.

 

I wrote a few days ago about how BBC reporters and news readers are now pronouncing the letter ‘s’ in the style of someone from certain parts of the USA. For example, I pointed out that we can hear street rather than street. Here’s a new one:

 

Mark Mardell, that unkempt and rather rotund BBC Europe correspondent had now gnarled the letter ‘s’ in the other way that Americans use: he said expertise in a recent report but he pronounced it as experteece. When he comes out with massooce as opposed to masseuse, then I will switch off BBC News for ever.

 

I still ask, who is taking the decision that reporters and news readers should speak like this and when and how are they taking the decision? I want to talk to whoever it is.

 

Still, it could be worse: they could have reportser and readers wearing baseball caps at a raunchy angle couldn’t they/

 

Finally, I am not anti American at all: rather I am anti the AmerEnglish that is becoming more widely used by the BBC and many others in the UK.

 

DW