RTE News Needs To Do Better

Radio Mad.

I've read comments elsewhere about the standard of news reading on some commercial broadcasters. Well, RTE News didn't exactly cover itself in glory today. The reader on RTE Radio One spent the morning telling us about a plane crash in a place called Foo-ket. The tragedy happened in Phuket, which is pronounced poo-ket.

It wouldn't have been so bad had the reader just erred once or twice. However, the mistake was repeated every half an hour during the nation's top rated radio show. While the reader should have known better, someone else should have picked up on it too and advised him of the error of his ways.

FlutterinBantam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phuket


Always drives you mad doesn't it!!

Liam Byrne

Any chance the newsreader tried pronouncing it a few times and then said, "ah, phooket" ?

[I'll get my coat.......]

homah_7ft

Well somebody is spelling it wrong so. If they want people to pronounce it that way they should insist the spelling is changed to Puket.

tampopo

Ah sure just change Talla, while you're at it!!!

mike65

Pah, I'll see your Phutek and raise you Athy.

More than once yesterday Eamon (breaking news/exclusivly on Newstalk) Keane managed to suggest the plane came down in Athy as it was "a thy plane crash"!

I wonder does he say 'Tems' or 'Thames'.

Mike.

homah_7ft

There's always some fool waiting on a, "Pronounciation error". My feeling on it is that once the meaning is clear then there is no problem.

Radio Mad.

homah_7ft wrote:

There's always some fool waiting on a, "Pronounciation error". My feeling on it is that once the meaning is clear then there is no problem.

Thanks, but this 'fool' wasn't 'waiting on a "pronounciation (sic) error"'. It simply came at this 'fool' full throttle every half an hour yesterday morning. It wasn't the biggest mistake ever, but surely someone in RTE News/Morning Ireland heard the error and could have put the poor newsreader right.

bmaxi

I am always puzzled when I see names of editors and researchers listed in the titles of news programmes and newspapers. Judging by the standard of grammatical English, it is hard to believe these people exist. I was driven to distraction last week when, every hour, the newscaster reported somebody's injuries as "not said to be life threatening". WTF does that mean?

mike65

"Said to be not life threatening" I presume!

Mike.

bmaxi

mike65 wrote:

"Said to be not life threatening" I presume!

Mike.

Exactly. I hate to be pedantic but these people get on my nerves. During the General Election the references to "Theeshock", the "Thawnishta" and "Feena Gwayol", rattled my cage as well. It would appear that to be journalist, it is more important to have a plummy D4 accent than a basic grounding in English. Rant over.( For the moment )

mike65

Theeshock", the "Thawnishta" and "Feena Gwayol", rattled my cage as well. It would appear that to be journalist, it is more important to have a plummy D4 accent than a basic grounding in English.

Heh!

I fully agree with you though.

Mike.

homah_7ft

Radio Mad. wrote:

I've read comments elsewhere about the standard of news reading on some commercial broadcasters. Well, RTE News didn't exactly cover itself in glory today. The reader on RTE Radio One spent the morning telling us about a plane crash in a place called Foo-ket. The tragedy happened in Phuket, which is pronounced poo-ket.

It wouldn't have been so bad had the reader just erred once or twice. However, the mistake was repeated every half an hour during the nation's top rated radio show. While the reader should have known better, someone else should have picked up on it too and advised him of the error of his ways.

Should it not be poo-get?

FlutterinBantam

bmaxi wrote:

Exactly. I hate to be pedantic but these people get on my nerves. During the General Election the references to "Theeshock", the "Thawnishta" and "Feena Gwayol", rattled my cage as well. It would appear that to be journalist, it is more important to have a plummy D4 accent than a basic grounding in English. Rant over.( For the moment )

I'm not too pedantic myself:D ,but I fail to get the jist of your argument there.

You complain about Irish language pronunciationsyet you wonder about competency in English.

Either that or its these cans of Cobra I'm downing:o

bmaxi

FlutterinBantam wrote:

I'm not too pedantic myself:D ,but I fail to get the jist of your argument there.

You complain about Irish language pronunciationsyet you wonder about competency in English.

Either that or its these cans of Cobra I'm downing:o

Sorry if I confused you. My intention was to highlight the pretentiousness of inserting a "th" sound where one doesn't exist. If I knew any Mandarin Chinese and was aware of a similar example, I could have used that.:rolleyes:

FlutterinBantam

Unfortunately the phonetic examples you give are correct for the Irish language.
You make the basic mistake,as indeed do many others,of thinking that irish and english have the same pronouncation.

English-- the cat
Irish-- an cat-pronounced an cath.

Don't worry about it,loads of people make that mistake:rolleyes:

NUTLEY BOY

I am genetically D4 and can tell you that that most of what you think are "plummy D4" accents are actually nothing of the sort but are utterly strangulated artificialities projected by inarticulate ignoramuses and wannabes some of whom have very obvious inferiority complexes.

A side problem is that some of these geniuses only speak English as a second language because they are gaelgoirs (sp?) first and foremost.

Contrary to some stupid snobs ideas there is actually nothing wrong whatsoever with any kind of regional accent as long as the diction is clear and the listener is not straining to understand what was actually said.

The very best RTE accent that I ever heard was from a woman who used to report on health matters. I think that her name was Aileen O'Meara (Tipperary) and the quality of her accent was simply as rich as it was delicious on the ear.

The one word that amuses me is "school" which now seems to be "skooal" according to some. That is nothing compared to pronounciations of roundabouts, darts and the rest of it. Bring back Michael Murphy (newsreader) full time.

As far as continuity announcers are concerned some of them are woeful. There is some female on RTE 1 TV who thinks she is brilliant with her hussky whispering tones that are so indistinguishable that you could not make out a word of what she says. She could be telling us that Osama Bin Laden is in Galway for his holidays she is so unclear.

Otherwise, I must say that that the quality of much RTE News and Current Affairs output is becoming positively tabloid in it's endeavours to reach the level of the lowest common denominator. Three times last week the News at One spoke of the evidence in relation to Ahern as being "in the dock". Firstly, I think that we have not had docks in Irish criminal courts for years. Secondly, Moriarty is a tribunal not a trial, but that would not prevent RTE giving it the tabloid style build up.

mike65

"skooal" is what my 4 year old niece says, which is interesting cos her mum is English and her dad is middle class rural Wexford (with English childhood) and they speak proper, like. So I can only surmise she picked up this pronunciation from her teachers at pre-school and/or her peers.

Mike.

bmaxi

NUTLEY BOY wrote:

I am genetically D4 and can tell you that that most of what you think are "plummy D4" accents are actually nothing of the sort but are utterly strangulated artificialities projected by inarticulate ignoramuses and wannabes some of whom have very obvious inferiority complexes.

My apologies to the good people of Dublin 4 . Probably "affected English Public school accents" would have been a more apt description, those people who speak of "rindabites in the rowd" and drink "poynts of Hoyneken" in the "Ragger clab".

Lizzykins

Michael Murphy says Aer Ling Us rather than what most people say Aer Ling Guss. Listen out for it. And while I'm at it the standard of grammar on RTE is awful. They have a habit of splitting clauses in sentences instead of using two or more sentences to describe something. I can't think of examples right now. The result is you don't know what's the object and subject of the sentence so you don't know what's been done to who and by who-or should one of those be "whom".
The newspapers are worse.

NUTLEY BOY

bmaxi wrote:

My apologies to the good people of Dublin 4 . Probably "affected English Public school accents" would have been a more apt description, those people who speak of "rindabites in the rowd" and drink "poynts of Hoyneken" in the "Ragger clab".

Those RTE anuses could not affect a real English public school, sorry skooal, accent if their lives depended on it.

As far as the rindabite and Hoyneken w*n*k*e*rs are concerned they they are nothing more than linguistic terrorists who need to be ignored severely.

NealOCarroll

Radio Mad. wrote: »

I've read comments elsewhere about the standard of news reading on some commercial broadcasters. Well, RTE News didn't exactly cover itself in glory today. The reader on RTE Radio One spent the morning telling us about a plane crash in a place called Foo-ket. The tragedy happened in Phuket, which is pronounced poo-ket.

It wouldn't have been so bad had the reader just erred once or twice. However, the mistake was repeated every half an hour during the nation's top rated radio show. While the reader should have known better, someone else should have picked up on it too and advised him of the error of his ways.

Jesus wept! It's a plane crash, and you're obsessing over pronunciations. Come on!

Our man in Havana

Ever listen to Barry O'Neill on 2fm sports? Need I say more?

mike65

Its an aural medium, so these things actually matter.

Mike.

Our man in Havana

mike65 wrote: »

Its an aural medium, so these things actually matter.

Mike.

+1

You are so correct there Mike.

Toto Wolfcastle

bmaxi wrote: »

Exactly. I hate to be pedantic but these people get on my nerves. During the General Election the references to "Theeshock", the "Thawnishta" and "Feena Gwayol", rattled my cage as well. It would appear that to be journalist, it is more important to have a plummy D4 accent than a basic grounding in English. Rant over.( For the moment )

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Unfortunately the phonetic examples you give are correct for the Irish language.
You make the basic mistake,as indeed do many others,of thinking that irish and english have the same pronouncation.

English-- the cat
Irish-- an cat-pronounced an cath.

Don't worry about it,loads of people make that mistake:rolleyes:

Some people pronounce Taoiseach etc with a soft 't' some don't. It's the rest of the word that annoys me. It's not 'shock', nor is it 'tawn', the emphasis on the 'w' in that pronounciation is incorrect.

I wouldn't mind people pronouncing Irish words incorrectly but those are words that are used everyday. (Actually, I do mind people pronouncing Irish words incorrectly. How many years of lessons do you need to learn it?? :rolleyes:)

And regarding cat-cath....I would phonetically spell in ca-ch (ch as in the start of cheese) but again it comes down to where you learned your Irish.

bbop

surely being able to pronounce words right should be basic for news and sports readers, fair enough lots of people have accents but after just listening to the 2fm news and sport, there were at least 10 mistakes in each of them. New Spurs coach "Johnd Ramos"!

Toto Wolfcastle

bbop wrote: »

surely being able to pronounce words right should be basic for news and sports readers, fair enough lots of people have accents but after just listening to the 2fm news and sport, there were at least 10 mistakes in each of them. New Spurs coach "Johnd Ramos"!

Apparently years ago RTE used to make people go to classes to learn how to pronounce things properly. I'm not sure if that's the case anymore but I would presume that they have something like it and if not they should.

I worked on a college radio station and before I was put on the air for the first time I was given a crash course in what to do and what not to do. And before every news bulletin all the people in the office used to go through the script and make sure whoever was reading it had the correct pronunciation, in particular for international news.

What really annoys me is when the say 'Tower' for Togher. Eh, it's actually Toe-ker...well in Cork it is anyway.

Our man in Havana

What is it about Portlaoise? RTÉ always call it portlaois AAAH! What is up with that?

Toto Wolfcastle

Bond-007 wrote: »

What is it about Portlaoise? RTÉ always call it portlaois AAAH! What is up with that?

Ah see I know this one!! They are told to pronounce it that way. Some radio presenter was talking about it before.

anotherlostie

Well I may be a lone voice of dissent, but at least RTE are still reporting on plane crashes in Thailand, unlike competitors spending 10 minutes of their evening bulletin dissecting the latest fights on X Factor. I wouldn't get too wound up over the mispronunciation. Do you think Dublin gets pronounced properly in France/ Italy, or is is called Dob-Leen? Should TV5/ RAI 1 be castigated for this?

Echelle

There appears to be no editorial control in RTE in relation to correct English being used on air. How many times have you heard the likes of ..."one of the three men are helping the gardai..." Should be one in three IS helping...This type of mistake is always being made by more than one reporter.And don't get me started on SAHURDAY for Saturday. It looks like to get a job as a weatherman/woman on RTE you have to say the former.

sudzs

..."one of the three men are helping the gardai..." Should be one in three IS helping...

Hear this kind of thing all the time. Drive me mad! :mad:

Another one is the "...and I" which presenters and guests alike use all the time under the misconception that it is "proper english".

eg. "then he gave the cheque to John and I" it's John and ME! You never say he gave the cheque to I, do you? No!

Drives me to distraction!

Echelle

And speaking of mispronunciation, did anyone hear the Marion Finnucane's interview (RTE last Sat. morning)with John Delaney of the FAI? He referred to San Marino at least twice and each time he said SAN MARINIO as in Jose Mourinho. So perhaps Saint Jose Mourinho is being considered as manager?

Toto Wolfcastle

Echelle wrote: »

And speaking of mispronunciation, did anyone hear the Marion Finnucane's interview (RTE last Sat. morning)with John Delaney of the FAI? He referred to San Marino at least twice and each time he said SAN MARINIO as in Jose Mourinho. So perhaps Saint Jose Mourinho is being considered as manager?

That doesn't count because John Delaney is clearly an idiot. And he has stupid hair.

tampopo

janeybabe26 wrote: »

That doesn't count because John Delaney is clearly an idiot. And he has stupid hair.

...and listening to Marian Finucane makes my ears bleed....

Toto Wolfcastle

tampopo wrote: »

...and listening to Marian Finucane makes my ears bleed....

...yes.....ears bleed and then my head explodes....and then I listen to Marian again the next week and the same thing happens because I have no head and thus don't remember listening to her previously and my head exploding.....

And yes I do realise that this post makes no sense.

McSween

i love the way english people put an R in at the end of a word ending with a vowel, but it must run in to a word beginning with a vowel too. examples include:

annar ivanovic to serve

lisar o'sullivan with this report



also you have jack strawr, he has a drawring room

fricatus

sudzs wrote: »

Hear this kind of thing all the time. Drive me mad! :mad:

Another one is the "...and I" which presenters and guests alike use all the time under the misconception that it is "proper english".

eg. "then he gave the cheque to John and I" it's John and ME! You never say he gave the cheque to I, do you? No!

Drives me to distraction!

AAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH, hypercorrection! It drives me nuts... comes from primary school, where we're (quite rightly) taught to say "John and I" rather than "Me and John", but where the teacher then forgets to add that this only applies to subject/nominative case use, not object/accusative!

McSween wrote: »

i love the way english people put an R in at the end of a word ending with a vowel, but it must run in to a word beginning with a vowel too. examples include:

annar ivanovic to serve

lisar o'sullivan with this report



also you have jack strawr, he has a drawring room

Hehe, Anner Ivanovic... so true! And then they pronounce "iron" as "ion".

I think it probably counts as hypercorrection too, because in RP English, an unstressed vowel at the end of a word is considered to have a "silent R" when run into another vowel, viz:

"Eva" rhymes with "beaver" (hehe, sorry, couldn't think of a better example), so the R should be pronounced in "the beaver is..."
By analogy (because the two words are thought to rhyme), we get "Eve-er-is..."

Proof, if proof were needed, that the English can hardly talk when it comes to speaking "proper" English, tee hee!

mike65

fricatus, io yooz can talk! Bleedin Deise boys.

I take it you're not from the top of the towen.

Mike.

Stylo

This topic started by criticising RTE for their news reports which is spot on - they couldn't give a monkeys - but it is not just news reading and pronunciation either. Just watch their bulletins, especially Six One. People get the wrong title, or indeed no title, faders go up and down at wrong times, presenters looking at wrong cameras, music comes in at wrong time, wrong report played - and it doesn't get any better. Recently Fr Peter McVerry was interviewed out on the street. They showed his name, and underneath, by way of description or job title was the word 'Jesuits' - brilliant ! from a room full of supposedly the best journalists in the country

As for pronunciation, I heard before the world cup in rugby was on, Ireland played Italy in Ravenhill and Declan McBennett said at least three times that 'this EYE talian team would be hard to beat' - maybe he goes to EYE taly on his holliers

Jesus H Christ - is that why they want a licence fee increase ? they couldn't run a p1ss up in a brewery

Echelle

On today's 11 am RTE 1 News the announcer stated todays/yestedays methane gas explosion in the Ukraine took place 10000( ten thousamd km) underground. Should he be fired?

Lizzykins

I picked up on that immediately!

Echelle

The TV news presenters on RTE fate no better...Eileen Dunne on the main 9pm news has just said "CONDOM NATION" for condemnation....

juuge

The news readers go to great lengths to pronounce Dn Laoghaire as 'goon layoragh when really it's known as done leary. Toss Pots

dubtom

juuge wrote: »

The news readers go to great lengths to pronounce Dn Laoghaire as 'goon layoragh when really it's known as done leary. Toss Pots

It's only known as dunleary to us common folk,although, for those who speak english properly,as many here claim to,they should probably call it kingstown.

Commanche

What about the Gardai being called the GORR DEE (instead of the p*gs hee hee hee )