Can you say brewery? Go on, just try it. three simple syllables. And let’s face it, if I can’t properly enunciate the name of an establishment that produces alcohol, I suspect no-one can.
My point is, insofar as I have one at this stage of the week and my working life, that it isn’t rocket science to pronounce this simple word with its straightforward spelling and rolling “r”s. We are, after all, the nation that invented Irn Bru, not In Bu.
Why, then, is it so damned hard, especially for people on the radio and telly, to spit out the word February?
Many furth of these shores put “r”s into the concept of “lauranorder”; why can’t they put them where they actually exist?
I get narked because my birthday (and the husband’s) is in February so it looms larger in my psyche than in the consciousness of most people.
Good old February month is quite dreich enough, in the common run of things, without getting its name wrong, too.
Feb-u-ary is not a word. It does not exist, just as the phantom letter seems not to exist for an entire coterie of those who are presumably hired for the clarity of their voices and diction to tell us and sell us stuff.
But I am attempting to be constructive here. Think “brewery” and you will never go far wrong.
Is there an “r” in the month? Mine’s a pint!
I AM sorry to hear about the demise of legendary treat Edinburgh Rock. It truly was tooth contortingly sweet stuff that came in pastelly shades unknown in nature and tended, even if you were a fluoride kid who brushed three times a day, to have you dancing around yelping as your existing fillings tingled and the rest of your mouth made way for many more.
It was, however, more yielding than the achingly pink Blackpool version that really trashed your molars, a kind of soft rock Eagles or Fleetwood Mac to the latter’s AC/DC or Motorhead.
We moved to Edinburgh when I was 10 and I associate Edinburgh Rock with that time. Family who lived in England packed their car boots to the max with it, Caramac, Scotch pies and tattie scones. I remember it fondly, if with the odd wince.
My current long-suffering dentist, I suspect, less so…
I HATE pink. Probably because, for the most part, I can’t wear it. It makes me look either unwashed and washed out. I never liked Barbie and I can’t cope with all these sweetie-pie versions of otherwise unexceptionable adult implements like razors and Biros, that are somehow supposed to appeal to adult women as more desirable in sugary shades of rose and cerise.
I was never girlie when I was a girl, let alone now when I am a card-carrying, if not quite yet a bus pass-wielding old bag. So you can imagine how impressed I am with the sickly pink battle bus unveiled by Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman and her giggling crew of trolley dollies as the answer to life where attracting the disaffected female vote is concerned.
Harriet says it’s not pink, it’s magenta. Well, even that’s got “gent” in it, Harriet, which underlines to even the crassest of political spinners that in many respects the current concerns of men and women voters – and non-voters – are not that different. It certainly doesn’t merit the hiving off of half the electorate into some fluffy sub-group to be talked down to, especially where the cloying nonsense about talking “woman to woman” or “around the kitchen table” is concerned.
Mrs (I hesitate to say Ms) Pink will make all clear to you confused little ladies out there. Well, whoop-di-do, at a time when life in general seems rather like a surreal cross between Reservoir Dogs and Cluedo. The Quentin Tarantino classic, you might recall, featured Mr Blue, Mr Brown, Mr Orange, Mr Pink etc, all up to no good.
So who’s for a Cluedo-style political solution? Mr Brown in the public meeting with a self-assembled vow? Mrs Pink on the bus with a heavy dose of irony? Or if you look at the still rib-tickling antics of bankers and politicians, Lord Green in the Upper House with a sharpened tax return?
No wonder fed-up women are turning to Mr Grey in the red room of pain with a B&Q cable tie for a bit of escapism. You would have to be a masochist to put up with this kind of patronising tone.
Although there is always the option to wield the strongest blunt instrument still in our armoury.
Speaking for myself alone, how about Ms Brown in the polling booth with a spoiled ballot paper?