Wednesday, August 13, 2008

What's happening to the CBC?

Right up to front, I will state what some may perceived as a bias. I work in broadcasting, as a news producer at 'A' Ottawa (until this past Monday, it was A-Channel). And we at 'A' are guilty of some of the same type of transgressions about which I am about to rant.

Now that that's out of the way, the national public broadcaster used to be the showcase of proper English, how to write it and how to speak it. That appears to have become a thing of the past.

A handful of examples illustrating that point:
-When I was on vacation, I was listening to a national program on CBC Radio (I believe it was "Sounds Like Canada" or possibly a newscast), and a reporter used the word "influx" as a verb, as in something was influxing. I add that to my list of nouns that cannot and should not be used as verbs (or "verbed" as Calvin says in one particular favourite edition of the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes").
-Last week, local CBC Ottawa radio reporter Nick Gamache was filling in as a newscaster. this gentleman usually covers issues in the Outaouais, which is the area of Quebec across the Ottawa River from Ottawa. While mentioning that Adam VanKoeverden would be Canada's flagbearer at the opening ceremonies for the Olympics, he pronounced the last name properly, but the first name was pronounced a-DAM. Yes, I know, that's the French pronunciation of Adam, but this was on the English CBC.
-This afternoon, again Nick Gamache, mispronounced the name of CBC Toronto reporter Philip Lee-Shanok, who was doing a report about the aftermath of Sunday's propane explosions, and said that many people suffered "trama". Methinks he meant trauma.


Showcase of the English language, eh?

P.S. As I was proofreading this, the 5:30pm CBC news came on. Gamache was describing a robbery suspect with a sparse moustache, and pronounced it "spairse".

6 comments:

Bob said...

Oh, yeah. One more Gamache-ism today. He pronounced Arkansas "ARK-in-sauce".

Maria said...

tomato - tomatoe...

a-DAM or ADAM... who gives a hoot?

Have a wonderful Thursday (Jeudi).

M-aRIA

Bob said...

One of the first things you learn about journalism is that the biggest insult to anyone is to misspell and/or pronounced their name.

Sean Newbury said...

whatever boob, oops I mean bob

Bob said...

I once worked with a guy who, when I commented that Bob only has one O, he said "Bobo?">

Anonymous said...

I think you should keep track of the stuff this guy says -- you could be his official lexographer or whatever that guy was who kept track of the crazy stuff Yogi Berra said