ANNOUNCERS' DICTION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 713, 13 March 1953, Page 5

ANNOUNCERS' DICTION

Sir, -aA distressing impediment which simulates intermittent vocal paralysis now affects some ZB_ announcers. Although their speech is spastic, the jolts come with predictable regularity just before a noun or between a noun and its article. In addition, the and a are nearly always given their excéptional long sound. Thus we hear-‘In thée-second innings, thee-er bowling accounted for -- seven — wickets." The malady is not just a temporary shortage of breath. Of wind there is plenty; but it comes in short pants. This is a bad thing. Our ears have long been attuned to the sound and our brains conditioned to the méaning of thesecond, forseven, and so on. Perhaps the only remedy needed is a reminder to those afflicted that a normal adult has a span of immediate memorfy of over 20 quickly spoken words, and that this halting diction, with its fits and starts, its accented articles and prepositions, and its affected phrasing, far from being either clear or funny, is actually tedious to listen to and difficult to comprehend. No, I can’t switch off. The, family still includes one child under séven who must

be served with entertainment appropriate to his mental age. But since he and his companions afte normally fluent, he is having difficulty in following the announcements. The advertisements are more intelligible and, ds a fesult, he knows what urea and chlordphyll are. But on those rare occasions when he can be dragged into the bathroom, he cleans his teeth with a home-made and inexpensive mixture of salt and baking soda.

F. W.

CRADDOCK

(Dunedin).