Monday, March 29, 2010

Famous Newscasters' School

How do the TV news and weather announcers in your town pronounce everyday words? I'm not talking about names of Iranian presidents or Taliban leaders, but words you'd expect they'd have mastered by the time the little red light winks at them.

Here's a short list of words that, according to a few friends on Facebook, TV newsroom staff need to work on:

  • Temperature -- often delivered as "temp-A-chur." Sounds like a Whirlpool appliance.
  • Didn't -- often delivered as "did-it." If you can say "lint," you can probably manage "didn't."
  • Mischievous -- often delivered as "mis-CHEE-vee-ous." Miss Cheevious was a second-grade teacher at P.S. 165 when I was in grade school.
  • Ostensibly -- there's no "V," and therefore no "ostensively."
  • Introduce -- please introduce (with an "o") yourself to the fact that "interduce" isn't a word.
  • Often -- often has a silent "T," so its correct pronunciation has no number 10.

Please add your own, and feel free share these with Laura Norder, the woman who's trying to get on the TV series, Law and Order.

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