Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Emma McNamara

Options
  • 16-07-2008 1:32pm
    #1
    Cole
    Registered Users Posts: 1,492 ✭✭✭


    I just have to have a brief rant about her..can't hold it in any longer.

    I have no reason to doubt her business journalism credentials and I am sure she is competent at her job...I notice she has received award nominations for her radio work in the recent past...but my god have you ever heard a voice more unsuitable for broadcasting.

    As well as having that unbearable (and now depressingly common) Dort/D4/AA Roadwatch accent, she has this monotone delivery.
    It's passable when reading the business news but when she is interviewing someone, its like a series of questions being processed through some kind of computerised voice system.

    Maybe production would be more suitable.


«1

Comments

  • Options
    #2
    FlutterinBantam
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,575 ✭✭✭✭FlutterinBantam


    Emma speaks beautifully and distinctly and clearly.

    She has a few faults but is way better than some skanger slurring their words and generally mashing the English language.

    I'd gladly give her a clip of the big purple fella.


  • Options
    #3
    ifconfig
    Registered Users Posts: 880 ✭✭✭ifconfig


    I have to agree with Cole here !

    I have no issues with the said presenters copy in terms of content and attention to detail, etc.

    think it all started when TodayFm and other broadcasters took in the AA roadwatch bimboid/bimbettes. Rinda-bites and sav-an mahnit toilbacks in Co-w-ark. Then RTE, the national broadcaster, seems to have made some tacit decision that this sort of Dort meets Estuary English vowel assault was acceptable within the prime time news/business slots...

    I know we've trashed out accents on this forum before but I often wonder if, within RTE, there are some presenters aghast at the way that some new presenters have come to prominence who have unbelievable vowel mangling, clipped diction that sounds more like a speech synthesizer programmed to imitate some curious mutation of Beverly Hills 90210 , mid-atlantic bilge than anything approximating a Hiberno-English brogue.

    I heard Michael Murphy on Mooney the other day and it reminded me of the sort of eloquent vocal delivery which is instantly recognisable as being Irish without being infected with faux-English or faux-CNN/American palaver.

    sorry.. this could turn into a rant.. again.
    My biggest issue is the vowel substitution lark. Sample in point: "Yass I'm gewing to the satty to boy a rad drass in Brewn Thomas for savanty yew-row" (blech!)


  • Options
    #4
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    I enjoyed reading that (once I got my head around the visual pronounciation!)

    Mike.


  • Options
    #5
    iplogger1
    Registered Users Posts: 277 ✭✭iplogger1


    mike65 wrote: »
    I enjoyed reading that (once I got my head around the visual pronounciation!)

    Mike.

    Glad you did Mike !
    I think RTE must be secretly planning to stage an in-house Ross O'Carroll
    Kelly radio play for the autumn season !

    guest starring Emma, Keelin, Miriam and a male voice borrowed from TodayFMs
    very own sports answer to Lloyd Grossman, Moickowl MawkMoolin


  • Options
    #6
    Nightwish
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,129 ✭✭✭Nightwish


    Emma Mocknomora has one of the most unbearable voices on radio. I wholeheartedly agree with the OP. She sounds exactly like a computer when interviewing people. I thin her favourite thing to say is the name of the head of the ECB Jean Claude Trichet. She puts on an OTT french accent when doing so.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    Dudess
    Closed Accounts Posts: 37,214 ✭✭✭✭Dudess


    FlutterinBantam wrote: »
    Emma speaks beautifully and distinctly and clearly.
    Well you know my feelings on her so I'll keep schtumm... ah sod it, I won't ;)

    I agree with Bantam, she does speak very clearly and distinctly. But oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph... the ACCENT!!!

    It is possible for a broadcaster to speak clearly and distinctly and with authority, but with a neutral accent (e.g. Myles Dungan - beautiful delivery).

    Emma's accent isn't really a D4 one, so to be fair, it's that bit more original. Instead, it's a snooty, clipped, harsh-sounding, plummy, Brit-inspired one. It sounds so stuck-up, arrogant, superior and condescending. Not a pleasant listening experience at all. But she's not alone: Susan Jackson and Emma Counihan are guilty of similar offences.

    And the one who's doing the AA on Ian Dempsey at the moment... my ears, they bleeeeeed!


  • Options
    #8
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    and so speaks a woman from Cork. :pac:

    Mike.


  • Options
    #9
    Wertz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,909 ✭✭✭✭Wertz


    ifconfig wrote: »

    think it all started when TodayFm and other broadcasters took in the AA roadwatch bimboid/bimbettes.

    Started long before Radio Ireland/TodayFM ever graced the airwaves....I think it's origins go back to the days when you had that bastion of AA rindabite dort intonation, Lorraine Keane, doing updates on Demo's breakfast show on 2FM...that has to go back to the early 90's at least...and since then as a phenomenon it has become self sustaining...a whole generation of kids grew up hearing more and more of both this domestic twang and the British/American influences that first birthed it. Nowdays I honestly don't think that anyone looking to work in frontline radio could get a job without having this accent...a generalisation maybe, but apart from the very odd exception I don't hear the traditional Dublin accent on the air anymore, just this plastic replacement, and it's rapidly spreading throughout the country....the next logical step is where they all start speaking with the high rising terminal (this happens ad nauseum on certain TodayFM shows already??)...


  • Options
    #10
    DenMan
    Registered Users Posts: 7,962 ✭✭✭DenMan


    Emma McNamara, my god I do believe we have a clone of Miriam O'Callaghan waiting in the wings. Is there a cloning facility at RTE? I was up there recently doing some work and didn't notice anything on the surface. Then again, they are always underground aren't' they? :D


  • Options
    #11
    irish_bob
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,271 ✭✭✭irish_bob


    Cole wrote: »
    I just have to have a brief rant about her..can't hold it in any longer.

    I have no reason to doubt her business journalism credentials and I am sure she is competent at her job...I notice she has received award nominations for her radio work in the recent past...but my god have you ever heard a voice more unsuitable for broadcasting.

    As well as having that unbearable (and now depressingly common) Dort/D4/AA Roadwatch accent, she has this monotone delivery.
    It's passable when reading the business news but when she is interviewing someone, its like a series of questions being processed through some kind of computerised voice system.

    Maybe production would be more suitable.



    on the few occasions she has to interview someone in the business and finance world , the results are pretty abysmal
    i suspect this is because an accent that plummy and haughty takes a lot of maintainence ,ones full attention would be devoted entirely to how the words come out
    it isnt a natural way to speak

    shes a dose of epic proportions , cant take the twit serious


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #12
    BreeVdK
    Closed Accounts Posts: 123 ✭✭BreeVdK


    With regards to Miriam O'Callaghan, I cannot stand her accent but hers is an interesting one in that it changes over and back between D4 and a Dub accent. I noticed this before but particularly when I BY MISTAKE switched on her talk show at the weekend. I think it was a boxer she was interviewing but a strong Dublin accent kept coming out here and there, I wish I could have recorded it for example it was 'fi-en' for fighting etc. Might just tune in again to listen and laugh, so I don't think she was born with the accent she uses now !!!


  • Options
    #13
    ronbyrne2005
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,494 ✭✭✭ronbyrne2005


    She sounds like a girl with a morketing degree from ewe-cee-dee


  • Options
    #14
    DublinWriter
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭DublinWriter


    DenMan wrote: »
    Emma McNamara, my god I do believe we have a clone of Miriam O'Callaghan waiting in the wings. Is there a cloning facility at RTE? I was up there recently doing some work and didn't notice anything on the surface.
    I've underlined what is wrong with your statement.
    DenMan wrote: »
    Then again, they are always underground aren't' they? :D
    Yes, just like the secret underground passageway that links the Grad hall of eww-cee-dee with the new employee induction room of arr-tee-eee.

    Unbelievably Emma is originally from somewhere like Carlow or Offaly...D4 she ain't.


  • Options
    #15
    Fulton Crown
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,493 ✭✭✭Fulton Crown


    Emma and Miriam - where did they come from ??? - Two very different accents in my opinion.

    Mir is pure Dublin 4 - but I did notice the accent changes when she was interviewing Bernard Dunne - the Boxer referrred to in previous posts - when I tuned in BY MISTAKE.

    OMMA is much harsher - can't believe she is from the Midlands..sounds like someone who has spent some time on the "Mainland" and picked up some of their worst speech habits.

    She used to speak at bullet train speed but now has slowed down to oxpross train velocity.

    How do you pronounce the word NETWORK - Moriam ond Omma ALWAYS say NEHWORK - :confused:

    Most annoying voice has to be ..just has to be .. the bint who does the advts for DID Electric and Weston Gardner.

    Jesus...wouldnt put the purple fella anywhere near HER !!!:eek:


  • Options
    #16
    Pigletlover
    Closed Accounts Posts: 968 ✭✭✭Pigletlover


    FlutterinBantam wrote: »
    I'd gladly give her a clip of the big purple fella.

    :eek: Have you ever seen her?

    I actually don't mind her accent that much, surprised to hear she's from Carlow though. I think she speaks very clearly and isn't anywhere near as annoying as Valerie Cox or that one who reads the farm news.


  • Options
    #17
    FlutterinBantam
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,575 ✭✭✭✭FlutterinBantam


    Well Olivia O'Leary is from carlow as is Kathryn Thomas.

    Must be a very malleable accent eh:cool:


  • Options
    #18
    Dudess
    Closed Accounts Posts: 37,214 ✭✭✭✭Dudess


    Pigletlover wrote: »
    :eek: Have you ever seen her?
    She's grand-looking - nothing hideous about her at all. But a lot of people expect her to be really hot, which she isn't.


  • Options
    #19
    humberklog
    Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 10,432 Mod ✭✭✭✭humberklog


    FlutterinBantam wrote: »
    Well Olivia O'Leary is from carlow as is Kathryn Thomas.

    Must be a very malleable accent eh:cool:
    Good point. Mind you I can see where Olivia's derives from (UCD in the 60's, Europa hotel, newsnight) and Kathryn's too (Electric picnic, ordering GandT in india, chlamydia physicians). I'm puzzled by the origins of Emma's though.
    Perhaps she worked her transition year in a stroke unit of a private hospital catering for polo players.


  • Options
    #20
    Dudess
    Closed Accounts Posts: 37,214 ✭✭✭✭Dudess


    ... Or perhaps she just puts it on in. :)

    Some people feel a need to effect a posh accent - insecurity maybe.

    My friend has a neutral accent with hints of Cork, but when she goes to bars frequented by college academics and arty types... well I kinda have to avoid being near her, so ridiculous and infuriating is the posh accent.


  • Options
    #21
    Cole
    Registered Users Posts: 1,492 ✭✭✭Cole


    humberklog wrote: »
    Perhaps she worked her transition year in a stroke unit of a private hospital catering for polo players.
    :D Good one.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #22
    ifconfig
    Registered Users Posts: 880 ✭✭✭ifconfig


    Wertz wrote: »
    ....the next logical step is where they all start speaking with the high rising terminal (this happens ad nauseum on certain TodayFM shows already??)...

    LOL Wertz !
    The "High Rising Terminal". I had never heard this linguistic term but it is more or less self explanatory !
    The term initially suggests some kind of architectural monstrocity in Ballsbridge which might be the concern of An Bord Pleanala but I soon copped it refers to that infuriating misplaced interrogative conversational tone used by young wans.
    Some Irish exchange student who had been in France was regailing Dave Fanning the other morning about her experience there and her anecdotes were laced with the said "high rising terminal" :pac:

    Ms O'Callaghan uses it along with the hair flick , etc LOL.
    Here are some links for budding cunning linguists ;)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary_English

    --Ian


  • Options
    #23
    Wertz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,909 ✭✭✭✭Wertz


    Also known as the Australian question-answer or the US version, valley girl speak...it's like a communicable disease amongst people...I hear it creeping into even regional and culchie accents lately, and it's not just the young ones either.
    If you listen to UK radio almost all the DJs use it...particulalry Jo Whiley and Fearne Cotton.

    Miriam is so bad for it it's funny, but I find it downright annoying and trite amongst "normal" people...it conveys a sense of seeming insecurity and lack of self confidence in those who use it...as if afraid to commit to what they're saying, so they "ask" a statement rather than just say it...
    It's even crept up online...look out for users (even on boards) who put question marks after sentences that aren't of a questioning structure?

    That wiki link is good, but they include some regional accents that have always had this inflection and not just started using it in the last 5 yrs because it's seemingly the cool way to talk...a lot of Northern Irish accents, particularly Belfast have always utilised it; that I have nothing against...nor with aussies/kiwis since that's how they talk...but FFS, if you're from anyplace else, tone it down...


  • Options
    #24
    Dudess
    Closed Accounts Posts: 37,214 ✭✭✭✭Dudess


    And with lots of pauses. E.g. "So I met him and he was like, totally weird? I mean, he wasn't interested in, like, rugby?"


  • Options
    #25
    ronbyrne2005
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,494 ✭✭✭ronbyrne2005


    Heard her on radio on friday and she seems to have changed her voice so it's less severe.


  • Options
    #26
    Dudess
    Closed Accounts Posts: 37,214 ✭✭✭✭Dudess


    I've noticed that too - she reads Boards!


  • Options
    #27
    DublinWriter
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭DublinWriter


    Pigletlover wrote: »
    :eek: Have you ever seen her?
    Yes. She's quite an attractive young lady.
    Pigletlover wrote: »
    I think she speaks very clearly and isn't anywhere near as annoying as Valerie Cox...
    Valerie Cochssss....genital herpes comes a distant second in the annoyance stakes.


  • Options
    #28
    FlutterinBantam
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,575 ✭✭✭✭FlutterinBantam


    Dudess wrote: »
    I've noticed that too - she reads Boards!


    :eek:No kiddin!!

    Pm The Flutt Emms, and I'll drill ya while you read the FTSE live on air;)


  • Options
    #29
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    Oh dear

    Mike.


  • Options
    #30
    FlutterinBantam
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,575 ✭✭✭✭FlutterinBantam


    Well why not, I think she is the epitome of sexiness.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #31
    Slidey
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,811 ✭✭✭✭Slidey


    Yes indeed
    00001e4710dr.jpg


This discussion has been closed.
Advertisement