A chill wind blows through my nervous system

It's a scientific fact that the only people who say "Antartic" are break-and-enter criminals -- in fact, that pronunciation is a prerequisite for employment in their profession, and rightly so.

So if I were Auntie, I'd be keeping a keen eye on the woman who read the News on Radio National at 9 o'clock this morning.

Tagged: scose, abc, australia, australian, english, language, radio, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, journalism, radio+national

More criterias

Tsk tsk. Tony Eastley from AM, you weren't listening about criteria and criterion. No, I don't mean to me, I mean to your 6th grade teacher. Today you get a big turtle stamp, naughty boy.

Tagged: scose, abc, australia, australian, english, language, radio, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, journalism, radio+national

ABC News: Language subversion, but why?

Use of Americanisms might seem innocuous, especially as we all do it to a certain extent. However, it's very unfortunate that ABC Radio National News takes it one step further, almost as though some person or persons there has a mission to extend American terms and pronunciations beyond the usual 'guy' and 'hi' which we all use.

For example, they have cancelled a great and original Australian term, 'lifesaver' (we were, after all, the originators of beach lifesaving), and replaced it with 'lifeguard' (a la Baywatch). The word 'repeat' they now call 're-peat', with the accent on the first syllable a la Jed Clampett, and 'railway station' is now almost invariably 'train station', like something you would find in the USA (if they had a rail network even remotely as good as Australia's).

How can we subvert the subverters? I really don't know, except of course in whatever small way I can bring these things to attention by Turtling them. Why are they doing it? I haven't the slightest idea. Why don't people in authority at the ABC do something about it? I cain't figger it, pardner!

Tagged: scose, abc, australia, australian, english, language, radio, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, journalism, radio+national

Reluctance and reticence

I suppose, if we were to be generous at this season of goodwill (mwahahaha!), we would admit that even in a pre-recorded program such as tonight's The Europeans (ABC Radio National), the word 'reticence' could understandablyly be accidentally swapped for the word 'reluctance'. (There you go, see my slip of the keyboard? We all do it, but that's never my point in Turtles.) The presenter might be unable to read their own or someone else's handwriting. It could happen to anyone, and under pressure of broadcasting the presenter might not notice the malapropism.

However, the fact that the glaring error is broadcast twice in as many days, presumably after having been heard by the same presenter at least once, as well as by the journalist and producer or producers, and other staff, is not so easy to explain generously or excuse. Nor is it easy to work out why the reluctance/reticence gaffe is not unique to The Europeans, but is not uncommonly heard on other programs. Is Auntie reinventing common words?

Unless we have now to decide or agree that the ABC is no longer supposed to be something of a benchmark of good English, which I am steadily and reluctantly becoming convinced is the new belief at Auntie, then we can only ask, firstly, how it could happen, and secondly, why on earth the ABC doesn't employ a proofreader or two. Someone with a smattering of high school English could only improve today's Radio National. Or is it time to put a dictionary in each studio and office? These can be purchased for a dollar or two at charity shops, where they abound.

Tagged: scose, abc, australia, australian, english, language, radio, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, journalism, radio+national

Auntie: It's all games for big rich kids

Juan Samaranch: The Games of the 29th Olympiad in 2008 are awarded to the city of Beijing.

CHEERS

Mick O’Regan: Happy punters greet the news that Beijing has won the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

This was how an item started today on The Sports Factor (ABC Radio National). We're supposed to think this is just fantastic. Not a word about Juan Antonio Samaranch, one of Franco's Spanish fascists, a guy who presided over the corrupt Olympic Committee for years. Then it gets worse:

Mick O’Regan: There has been sustained criticism of the PRC over the years for its poor human rights record; firstly, how significant is an evaluation of that human rights records for the IOC?

Kevan Gosper: Well we’re not there to monitor human rights, we’re there to stage the biggest international sporting event on the globe. But we know that the Chinese have said that one of the benefits of the Games is it will continue to open up the country, and indeed in the last 20 years, they’ve opened up dramatically, you know they’ve become a member of the World Trade Organisation, they’ve got Expo coming to Shanghai just a couple of years after the Games. They’ve opened up market and democratic processes. However there is still criticism coming from around the world. A lot of people don’t take into account how much advancement there has been in this area, but I repeat, the discussion on human rights does come up from time to time but our preoccupation is with the staging of the Games, and I told you we’re very happy with that, and also with the freedom of the press relating to the Games. And that’s our main focus.

Mick O’Regan: But just on that: the sort of green and yellow cards that you referred to in the evaluation of preparations for the built environment, is there any sort of coding that goes with those less tangible but more politically sensitive issues like human rights?

Kevan Gosper: No, it would be quite wrong of us to have a measure on human rights as a sporting organisations. I mean, there are independent organisations and non-government organisations in the world who are responsible for the moving of such an issue forward, and every democratic government’s head who goes into China raises the subject. So whilst we obviously are concerned that there is progress, it really isn’t our province to lay down the law to China, a country of 1.3-billion, on this issue. Our preoccupation has to be that we are preoccupied to see Beijing stage a first-class international Olympic Games, and put the conditions forward they’re excellent for all athletes of the world, and as far as I’m concerned and the International Olympics Committee is concerned, it’s doing that.

Mick O’Regan: Australia’s senior Olympic official, Kevan Gosper.
Source: The Sports Factor

Real investigative journalism, that was, Auntie. You had Gosper on the run there. Hard hitting questions about the morality of the Olympic Games themselves, and their association with one of the most brutal dictatorships the world has ever known, while God knows how many Chinese citizens are being imprisoned, tortured and executed for their beliefs.

Google search torture china

Tagged: abc, radio+national, australia, human+rights, china, olympics, olympic+games, journalism