I’ve noticed that BBC announcers stress and drag out the last word or syllable in a sentence. Why? Sometimes it almost sounds as if they’re bored.
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
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Jeremy Paxman does this. But only to patronise the shit out of people. Otherwise, who the hell knows, no-one else in England speaks like the BBC folk.
I have the exact thing you’re talking about in my head right now–it’s a lot of fun to imitate.
I don’t know this for sure, but I imagine that it’s a formal way of distancing the announcer from any emotional content in the news text he/she is reading. The use of the same vocal cadence at the end of each sentence eliminates any opportunity for inflection of meaning.
The ironic thing to me is that, here in America, news anchors always try to look/sound as if they care about what they are reading–so much so that they tend to come off as parodies of sincerity; meanwhile, American newsanchors are extremely polite and diplomatic when interviewing people.
In contrast, the BBC news anchors read the news like machines–no feeling at all. But they are incredibly beligerant and argumentative in interviews. It can be a lot of fun to hear!
I cannot for the life of me work out what this is about. Can anybody elaborate?
What about Lynn Russell of CNN? She always looks like she’s on happy juice or wacky backy, about to break out in giggles no matter what the news.
“700 people are now – snicker – confirmed dead in the cult mass murder-suicide in Uganda. Meanwhile – smirk – a British newspaper has uncovered a plot to assassinated top NATO officials. And two children – hhnnkhh – were killed today on the Georgia-Tennessee border when a train collided with their school bus.”
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Listen to the BBC radio news sometime. I get it on the local NPR station in Phoenix, KJZZ at 6:30 PM.
The BBC style is the particular and precise way they have to speak on air. The announcers are not allowed any creativity when reading the news. I’m sure that if a BBC news reader pulled a Dan Rather and closed with “courage” his ass would be so fired.
It’s also unusual to hear a BBC newsreader make a mistake or get tongue-tied. An expatriate Brit told me that if one did make a mistake on air they were given the sack pretty quickly. Maybe BBC has lightened up though because I’ve heard a few slipups and spoonerisms in the past few months and am not aware of any of them being forced to commit seppuku.
Padeye, I listen to the BBC news every day, but I don’t hear them stressing or drawing out the last word of a sentence. If the OP is just referring to the deadpan style, I’m fairly sure that it’s done to prevent any accusations of bias in the way the news is read.
As for making a mistake on air, it’s unusual but not unheard of. There was a great story on the Today Programme (BBC Radio 4’s morning news programme) a few weeks ago about a man who had been prevented from burying his late wife in their back garden (we have laws about these things). They interviewed him live on-air, and it was quite clear that the man was, er, a little unbalanced. It was a short interview, and at the very end the interviewer, John Humphreys, asked what he was going to do with his wife’s body. The reply was, “I am going to have her stuffed and mounted in the living room”. Immediately after he said this, the other presenter, James Naughtie, was required to introduce the next piece. He screwed it up completely because he was laughing so much.
For the Americans who’ve never heard the Today show, it’s quite political (meaning it’s about politics, not that it’s biased, except in favour of the EU ;))and not to everyone’s taste at such an early hour, but great at putting politicians on the spot. You know the way most interviews go, skirting around the question, not giving a real answer. On the today show, politicians are often given a torrid time with the interviewers having been known to ask the same ‘difficult’ question repeatedly until they receive an answer or, as has happened not infrequently, the ‘victim’ walks out of the studio. Great stuff.
Jeremy Paxman asking Michael Howard (former Home Secretary) the same question 13 times because he wasn’t getting a straight answer springs to mind…
“You know you talk so hip man, you’re twisting my melon man,”
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