Never in the field of human news reporting has so little been said so often by so many. I lost count of the number of news bulletins about Brexit negotiations this week that told us, at great length, there was no news. It would have made a good comedy sketch: “We cross now to Brussels, where it seems that nothing continues to happen at great pace”.
What we did hear, though, was the misuse of –ed and –nt word endings. There is one news reader in particular who habitually asks, “What have we learnt about the negotiations?”
I think it has all been a ploy to show more comedy shots of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s elegant dress sense standing next to Boris Johnson, who has clearly been attempting to cut his own hair.
The most amazing thing of all, however, is that BBC news anchors and reporters seem to have such a poor grasp of basic English these days. The rule is that “learned” is the past tense of learn (she learned to dress well), while “learnt” is the adjectival form (wearing a suit you look like you’ve slept in is a learnt behaviour).
When I was growing up, everyone on a BBC news programme had impeccable English language skills. They used idioms correctly, had pristine grammar skills, and if you saw text on screen it was unfailingly spelled and punctuated correctly. This is not the case today. I don’t know who is in charge of the scrolling type at the bottom of news programmes, but they should buy themselves a good dictionary.
The high standards of English usage adopted in the BBC’s early years were at the insistence of Sir John Reith, the first director-general of the British Broadcasting Company. He was, of course, a Scotsman, a son of the manse born and raised in Stonehaven.
He insisted that news reports be delivered using received pronunciation. This was not, as is sometimes claimed, intended to be a London or Home Counties accent. The original idea was to use a non-regional accent that didn’t drop the h from horse, or make a hanging a hangin.
It sounded frightfully posh, indeed alien, to our Scottish ears. And nowadays we laugh at the ridiculously plummy tones that accompany black and white newsreel footage.
But you have to admire the root intention. Reith wanted news reports to use words that were properly pronounced. The intention was to report in a way that was understandable to everyone up and down the country. Despite it sounding far too “English” I think he succeeded in that.
Mind you, Sir John (later Lord) Reith was working with journalists who already possessed decent language skills that he could build upon. He’d soon have learnt different if he was around today.
Word of the week
Perorate (verb)
Speak at length. EG: “One thing I’ve admired about BBC reporters is their ability to perorate about absolutely nothing.”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
