Slang on the World Service - can they pull it off?
Do you think colloquial English is out of order on the World Service? It鈥檚 easy to have a little verbal fun about this - are you chilled about World Service presenters being down with using slang? Are you sick to the back teeth (let alone as a parrot) of hearing clich茅s?
The question of slang being used by presenters was raised by an interesting email from listener Peter O鈥橪eary from Dublin. Peter is a keen listener to the World Service which he describes as 鈥榰nique and invaluable to radio listeners around the world鈥. But he had this to say about slang鈥
鈥淲hen interviewing persons whose first language is not English, some of your news staff have an unhelpful habit of using clich茅s and slang expressions which are not going to be understood by the interviewee.
The most recent incident I heard, which has prompted me to write, was on when one of your female interviewers asked an Italian news journalist about Berlusconi鈥檚 impending court appearance. She asked the Italian if he thought that Berlusconi would plead innocent and, if so, 鈥榳ould he be able to pull it off鈥.
The poor Italian hadn鈥檛 a clue about what she meant and I shudder to think what literal translation may have been flashing through his mind.
I have since talked with several of my friends about this aspect of using slang when we are speaking English to those whose first language is not English.
We have all agreed that we would, without thinking, ensure that no clich茅s or slang are used and we would automatically select our wordings very carefully to ensure that we would be understood.
I realise that George Bernard Shaw has stated that 鈥榯he best English is spoken in Dublin鈥 and that we all can鈥檛 be perfect (!) but a small word of advice in the attentive ears of your interviewers mightn鈥檛 go astray.鈥
What do you think? Would you be over the moon, well happy, if slang and clich茅s were banished from the airways?
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Rajan Datar is the presenter of Over To You.
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Comment number 1.
At 19th Apr 2011, Scotch Get wrote:Pure dead brilliant, by the way!
What was the question?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)