# NPR's Jackie Lyden, what do you require by way of fuck-you money? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 14, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453 "2009-03-14T21:53:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MagicEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/61 "2009-03-19T04:14:57Z")
> [@An\_Arky](#): > > Interesting how one person’s trash is another one’s treasure, huh? > > Oh, and Garrison Keillor…I can’t believe no one’s brought him up. I…I…just cannot succinctly describe how much I hate hearing his voice, and his show…I hate that worse than his voice. If I won a bajillion dollars in the lottery, I would gladly pay him several million dollars to get off the air. What’s even more galling is that he seems to do his show in front of large, delighted audiences. That really brings out the Ricin-maker in me. It wouldn’t be so bad if he wouldn’t try to sing. I think he calls himself a “passable baritone.” :rolleyes: If you like nasally, breathy singing, maybe. I have to turn the radio off when he starts singing. Just let me know when the sound effects guy comes on–he’s the real star of the show! ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/62 "2009-03-19T15:53:20Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > this thread is sponsored by the neekc foundation at a e c f dot o r g, and underwritten with a grant from the robert woodjohnson foundation. This is npr. National. Public. Radio. blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! :d ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/63 "2009-03-19T16:06:40Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > Anyone else find the overenunciations of Lakshmi Singh annoying? If we’re just throwing out names here… she kinda cracks me up. I picture an Indian version of Asian Reporter Tricia Takinawa from _Family Guy_ whenever I hear her. I think that’s just her accent. Her name is Indian, but I think her heritage is more Afro-Caribbean than Indian. ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/64 "2009-03-20T05:38:23Z")
> [@MagicEyes](#): > > It wouldn’t be so bad if he wouldn’t try to sing. I think he calls himself a “passable baritone.” :rolleyes: If you like nasally, breathy singing, maybe. I have to turn the radio off when he starts singing. Just let me know when the sound effects guy comes on–he’s the real star of the show! Oh God, yes! He gets really great musicians on his show, then insists on singing with them. Gary, baby, you’re on the radio every week; your guests I hardly ever get to hear. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/65 "2009-03-20T06:49:36Z")
The NPR voice that I can’t stand is [Dick Estell, the Radio Reader](http://radioreader.net/). I don’t know who he slept with to get the job but I’m guessing neither walked away satisfied. (Estell in the height of passion: “_Oh. That is good. Yes. Sweet Jesus. That is wonderful. And we are out of time. Next time: cunnilingus. For now, goodnight_.”) He sounds like the Reverend Jim Jones’s warm up act, has the cadence of a telegraph, and the only time I like him is when he reads romantic scenes or characters who speak with regional/urban/foreign dialect or slang it’s unintentionally hysterical, but that’s not often enough. Judging from his picture surely he’s old enough to go ahead and retire. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/66 "2009-03-20T11:29:35Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I think that’s just her accent. Her name is Indian, but I think her heritage is more Afro-Caribbean than Indian. She doesn’t really have an accent. She has a way of enunciating that sounds really weird to me. Very overly and artificially newscaster-ish. My gripe is the same about Gregory Feifer. They both sound so self-consciously mannered. ---
**Author:** ![fruitbat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fruitbat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fruitbat)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/67 "2009-03-20T11:49:52Z")
Garrison Keillor make me want to stab myself. We listen to NPR all weekend when we are home, so I am subjected. What I don’t understand is how anyone could possibly enjoy Prairie Home Companion. The jokes were corny in 1950, the music is a cross between Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk and his voice causes fish to die in abject despair. I can not possibly understand the appeal to the point where I listen just to find that one day, that one show, where a joke is told that gives me the insight to understand what he is doing crapping up the middle of my NPR weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/68 "2009-03-20T17:02:59Z")
> [@fruitbat](#): > > Garrison Keillor make me want to stab myself. We listen to NPR all weekend when we are home, so I am subjected. What I don’t understand is how anyone could possibly enjoy Prairie Home Companion. The jokes were corny in 1950, the music is a cross between Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk and his voice causes fish to die in abject despair. I can not possibly understand the appeal to the point where I listen just to find that one day, that one show, where a joke is told that gives me the insight to understand what he is doing crapping up the middle of my NPR weekend. He also has a _terrible_ reputation for being a complete horse’s ass to work for and makes his writers sign a contract that gives him complete ownership of the material, meaning that he can use anything they write in any other form (i.e. incorporate it into one of his novels or whatever) without any kind of credit or further payment. And it’s always their fault if he bombs of course. This is one of the reasons he’s constantly looking for writers. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/69 "2009-03-20T17:10:11Z")
Thank you! I figured he had to be “difficult” IRL… One thing I actually don’t mind that he does is the Writer’s Almanac short segment. Of course, it’d be better if someone else read it. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/70 "2009-03-20T19:15:37Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > I always criticized the habit NPR announcers had in the 1980s and early 1990s of overpronouncing Spanish words and place names. In recent years, there’s one guest commentator who speaks in a thick Don Juan “intellectual Mexican poet” kind of accent, where every word is _muy importante_. Can’t think of the name, though. Drives me nuts, like he’s trying to seduce female listeners rather than comment on whatever. Is it Junot Diaz? He can be a big pretentious bag of crap sometimes. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97568937](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97568937) ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/71 "2009-03-22T05:42:20Z")
> [@lisacurl](#): > > Is it Junot Diaz? He can be a big pretentious bag of crap sometimes. > > [Author Junot Diaz Shares Thanksgiving Memories : NPR](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97568937) Nope. Junot Diaz doesn’t have that “Don Juan” accent. It isn’t Felix Contreras either. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/72 "2009-03-22T10:20:38Z")
The one NPR news reader who is nails on my chalkboard is Ann Taylor. Her voice in general is somewhat unpleasant, but what I absolutely can’t stand is how she pronounces “news.” She changes the vowel sound in “news” from a rising to a falling diphthong. I pronounce “news” with a pure vowel: [nu:z]. I have no problem with the rising diphthong in RP: [nju:z]. But I want to claw my ears out every time Ann says [ni:wz] – i.e. “nEEEEEewz.” That’s just wrong. And she repeats it several times every day. I may be the only one who likes hearing Joanne Silberner, for some utterly irrational reason. I think 'cause she sounds like an old friend of mine. I really miss the truly mellifluous tones of Chitra Raghavan. It’s been years since she was last heard from. I like how María Hinojosa actually pronounces Spanish names in Spanish. She code-switches English and Spanish on a dime. Many linguists I know consider that doing that a big no-no in English, but whenever I listen to her I’m like ¡Viva la raza, you go, chica! I have never noticed anything objectionable about Jackie Lyden. The only thing I dislike about Sylvia Poggioli is you can hear in her voice every cigarette she’s ever smoked. ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/73 "2009-03-22T10:59:17Z")
Another voice that’s bugging me is one I heard last night, on the BBC World Service overnight show carried by my local NPR station (I think it’s distributed by PRI, so it’s not NPR’s fault): Dee Sebastian. Looked her up on the intertubes, and I can find one other person who dislikes her voice… everyone else deems her voice “sexy” and “husky.” She sounds too breathy, like she’s forcing out that last gasp of air at the end of every sentence before she passes out, and reminds me of that generic, annoying “sexy breathy female voice” that Prairie Home Companion uses _every. single. time._ the script calls for a female to throw themselves at whatever character Garrison’s playing. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/74 "2009-03-22T14:38:02Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > I really miss the truly mellifluous tones of Chitra Raghavan. It’s been years since she was last heard from. She left N.P.R. for _U.S. News and World Report_ years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/75 "2009-03-22T14:44:02Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > I really miss the truly mellifluous tones of Chitra Raghavan. It’s been years since she was last heard from. Oh, _that’s_ her name. I remember every time she was on, I would try to listen especially closely to her name, but it seemed like she always said it so fast, I never knew what the hell it was. She’d do this flawlessly enunciated segment, ended with “thisischitraragavan”. For a long time, I thought the poor woman’s first name was “Chick”. Thank you for clearing that up for me. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/76 "2009-03-22T15:55:19Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > I like how María Hinojosa actually pronounces Spanish names in Spanish. She code-switches English and Spanish on a dime. Many linguists I know consider that doing that a big no-no in English, but whenever I listen to her I’m like ¡Viva la raza, you go, chica! I can’t stand that. That’s old-school politically correct 1980s/early 1990s style, when _every_ NPR announcer, whether Anglo or Hispanic, would overpronounce Spanish-based words, but not those words from other languages. They’d go on about the Sah-dah-nee-tyahs in Nee-kah-lah-goo-wah, but it was just Paris, France, not Pah-ree, Fraahns. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/77 "2009-03-22T19:38:36Z")
I don’t know about any other announcers, but María Hinojosa pronounces Spanish correctly, and she has the street cred to do so authentically. Besides, to label her pronunciation “politically correct” is just a lazy way of dismissing something. She isn’t doing it to be affected or PC, she’s doing it because as a bilingual Latina she simply talks that way naturally. Like it or not, spoken Spanish (unlike French or any other language) is widely woven into the linguistic tapestry of the USA. It was spoken here since long before English was. ---
**Author:** ![fruitbat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fruitbat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fruitbat)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/78 "2009-03-22T22:11:13Z")
I would just like to thank Garrison Keilor for shitting up my weekend yet again. My wife likes having NPR on, and I feel like I should just be able to ignore it. No longer. I think it is making me, the world’s most easy going guy, into an angry person. He was signing luau music or some other awful shit this morning. I think it was supposed to be a joke, because the audience laughed once in the middle. Fuck if I know. I was busy imagining strangling him. Not in the figurative sense, but imagining him showing up at my home, walking in the front door, and strangling him on the carpet. I can’t do it anymore. I am now forced to ban NPR during the three weekend hours devoted to PHC. My family will have to learn to love the silence. Sorry to rant, but there is no one, in real life or entertainment, who can get anything approaching this reaction out of me. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/79 "2009-03-22T22:35:09Z")
Aside, I just want to say its a privilege to participate on a Board that actually has an commentary about how NPR might be improved. And remember, when we get to Hell, it will always be Pledge Week… ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453/80 "2009-03-22T22:39:18Z")
I like Garrison’s show, but can see how it could make you homicidal. For me, it’s Jerome MacDonald. And Tavis Smiley–I hate their voices, their shows, their “interviews”. I miss Gretchen Helfridge’s show, Odyssey. Diane Rehms is also one that has got to go. I picture her coming down from the rafters to do her show, feasting on the blood of new interns to keep her “youth”… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-jackie-lyden-what-do-you-require-by-way-of-fuck-you-money/489453.md?page=5)