The committee appointed by the British Broadcasting Company to advise upon a system of pronunciation which shall be uniform in all broadcasting stations is to continue its sittings. As announced in yesterday╒s ╥Manchester Guardian╙ it is under the chairmanship of the Poet Laureate (Mr. Robert Bridges). Mr. George Bernard Shaw has now consented to give his assistance, and the other members are Sir J. Forbes-Robertson, Professor Daniel Jones, of London University, Mr. Logan Pearsall-Smith (representing the Society for Pure English), and Mr. Li James (Lecturer in Phonetics at the School of Oriental Studies).
Emphasising that it does not wish to dictate or lay down principles of pronunciation for the country the B.B.C. points out that announcers are frequently confronted by words in print which are seldom heard in speech. Many words have been submitted to the committee by the announcers as being the subject of differences of opinion. Others are words the pronunciation of which has been challenged by correspondents.
The following is a full list of the committee╒s rulings up to the present stage of its deliberations:-
Technical Words
Acoustics-Acoosticks.
Autogiro-Autojyro.
Gyratory╨Jyratory.
Gyroscope-Jyroscope.
Doubtful Vowels
Bade-Bad.
Courtesy-Curtesy.
Gala-Gahla.
Idyll-Iddill.
Privacy-Prive-acy.
Precedence-Pre-ceedence.
Problems of Accent.
Condolence-Condolence.
Despicable-Despicable.
Hospitable-Hospitable.
Inextricably-Inextricably.
Obligatory-Obligatory.
Decorous-Decorous.
Sonorous-Son-orous.
Place Names.
Northants-North-amptonshire.
Southampton-South-hampton.
Towcester-Toaster.
Words Adopted Unchanged from a
Foreign Language.
Carabiniers-Carabinears.
Charabanc-Sharabang.
Chauffeur-Show-fer.
Garage-Garage (╥age,╙ as in French).
Liaison-Leeayzon.
Questionnaire-Quest-yon-air.
Foreign Place Names.
Boulogne-Bouloan.
Calais-Callay.
Lyons-Lions.
Marseilles-Mar-sails
Rheims-Reams.
It is realised that in many cases the recommendations of the Committee involve a dogmatic decision on points which might legitimately be arguable, but to prevent confusion uniformity is to be attempted.
