Presenters

[MrGongGong]

I think you probably have.

[Rcartes]

OK, Cleverclogs, outline the point of the board for me.

[Bryn]

I think we are faced with a situation where withdrawal of feeding is called for.

[jayne lee wilson]

I don't know if it's considered wrong to launch personal attacks on presenters, Sarah Walker in particular (though as far as I'm concerned any attack on that horrible simpering twit is justified) but this isn't a general personal attack, just a great groan of despair at the woman's inability to pronounce "Haydn". Can't someone get it into her head that his name wasn't "Haydun"? Grrrrr!

1) "I don't know if it's wrong to launch personal attacks on presenters"
When would you consider it right to launch PERSONAL attacks (not those based on professional competence) on anyone?

2) "as far as I'm concerned any attack on that horrible simpering twit is justified"
What relevance does this VERY PERSONAL, appearance-based attack have to Sarah's abilities as a presenter?

3)"But this isn't a general personal attack"
You are making such an attack - deconstructing your own previous statement (see 2). And with your following complaint about pronunciation this is - precisely - a general attack, based on Sarah's manner, appearance and ability.

4)"Just a great groan of despair at the woman's inability to pronounce "Haydn""
This is your only potentially substantial complaint; why precede it with such offensive comments? And we also note that some knowledgable listeners here do not agree with you about the pronunciation.

I submit that you are your own weakest link, so...

[Rcartes]

1) "I don't know if it's wrong to launch personal attacks on presenters"
When would you consider it right to launch PERSONAL attacks (not those based on professional competence) on anyone?

2) "as far as I'm concerned any attack on that horrible simpering twit is justified"
What relevance does this VERY PERSONAL, appearance-based attack have to Sarah's abilities as a presenter?

3)"But this isn't a general personal attack"
You are making such an attack - deconstructing your own previous statement (see 2). And with your following complaint about pronunciation this is - precisely - a general attack, based on Sarah's manner, appearance and ability.

4)"Just a great groan of despair at the woman's inability to pronounce "Haydn""
This is your only potentially substantial complaint; why precede it with such offensive comments? And we also note that some knowledgable listeners here do not agree with you about the pronunciation.

I submit that you are your own weakest link, so...

(1) Attacks are, I think, justified in this case by her manner, which I find infuriating, not to say tooth-grindingly awful and which seriously impairs her abilities as a presenter. You may disagree, but since when did everyone have to agree with you? This would be a pretty damn boring board if everyone agreed with everyone else.

(2) As (1).

(3) OK, I confess, it was a personal attack - but why on earth you bring her appearance into it is a mystery: this is radio we're discussing, for heaven's sake, and I have made no reference to her appearance - which, to judge by her photo on the R3 website, is unexceptionable.

(4) The Haydun comment was not the only point of disagreement or even the most serious: see my comment earlier on her crass description of a Wagner "aria." But to return to the Haydun issue, the only objections have been from someone who found an example in which (hooray) she got it right, and another who seems to think it correct to insert a vowel between two (or more) consonants. This seems a particularly English problem, native Polish, Czech or Russian speakers find no problem with it. Oddly, nor do English speakers where combinations like 'p' and 'l' are concerned: no one (except in the highly exaggerated version 'puh-leeeeze') has a problem pronouncing "please," so it must simply be unfamiliarity with, particularly, Central/East European combinations like, for example, the surname of the Czech writer Josef Škvorecký.

We disagree, and so what? See (1) above. I have to say the sanctimonious holier-than-thou tone of some of the comments here is rather strange, and not conducive to a decent discussion.

[jean]

the only objections have been from...another who seems to think it correct to insert a vowel between two (or more) consonants.

I suppose you mean me.

What I actually said was that it's difficult to pronounce dn without an intervening vowel, albeit a residual one. The combination pl is quite different, so there's nothing odd about our ability to pronounce that.

And weren't you the poster who wrote

...We listed to the radio a lot, not Radio 3 (which had very little jazz and that spoiled at the time by the unctuous, oleaginous Steve Race)...

I hope you felt that your post gave rise to a suffiicently decent discussion on that occasion.

[MrGongGong]

(1) Attacks are, I think, justified in this case by her manner, which I find infuriating, not to say tooth-grindingly awful and which seriously impairs her abilities as a presenter. You may disagree, but since when did everyone have to agree with you? This would be a pretty damn boring board if everyone agreed with everyone else.

What do you mean by "awful" in this context ? (as distinct from your obvious infuriation)

The pronunciation of non English words in English is always varied, we don't pronounce the name of the capital of France the same way as the French and we even have our own names for some places etc .....

[jayne lee wilson]

(1) Attacks are, I think, justified in this case by her manner, which I find infuriating, not to say tooth-grindingly awful and which seriously impairs her abilities as a presenter. You may disagree, but since when did everyone have to agree with you? This would be a pretty damn boring board if everyone agreed with everyone else.

(2) As (1).

(3) OK, I confess, it was a personal attack - but why on earth you bring her appearance into it is a mystery: this is radio we're discussing, for heaven's sake, and I have made no reference to her appearance - which, to judge by her photo on the R3 website, is unexceptionable.

(4) The Haydun comment was not the only point of disagreement or even the most serious: see my comment earlier on her crass description of a Wagner "aria." But to return to the Haydun issue, the only objections have been from someone who found an example in which (hooray) she got it right, and another who seems to think it correct to insert a vowel between two (or more) consonants. This seems a particularly English problem, native Polish, Czech or Russian speakers find no problem with it. Oddly, nor do English speakers where combinations like 'p' and 'l' are concerned: no one (except in the highly exaggerated version 'puh-leeeeze') has a problem pronouncing "please," so it must simply be unfamiliarity with, particularly, Central/East European combinations like, for example, the surname of the Czech writer Josef Škvorecký.

We disagree, and so what? See (1) above. I have to say the sanctimonious holier-than-thou tone of some of the comments here is rather strange, and not conducive to a decent discussion.

Don't be greedy, Rc... you really don't need THAT much rope...

[Quarky]

Years back, I remember Kay Burley on the ITV Breakfast Show, making the same error.
When her co-presenter corrected her, she replied "Well that's how we pronounce it where I come from."

HS

I feel HS may be close to the truth in this matter. Having spent many years studying Hoch Deutsch at the Goethe Institut, I recall a teacher impressing on me that, in view of the great number of dialects in the German speaking regions, there is a great deal of tolerance of off-norm pronunciation.
I gather Haydn hailed from somewhere in the countryside in Austria. How was German spoken in Esterhazy 300 years ago, I wonder?
IMV, It would be pronounced with a long aaa, a sharp eee, short d, and emphasised nnn, all at the back of the throat. But who cares?

[Mr Pee]

I feel HS may be close to the truth in this matter. Having spent many years studying Hoch Deutsch at the Goethe Institut, I recall a teacher impressing on me that, in view of the great number of dialects in the German speaking regions, there is a great deal of tolerance of off-norm pronunciation.
I gather Haydn hailed from somewhere in the countryside in Austria. How was German spoken in Esterhazy 300 years ago, I wonder?
IMV, It would be pronounced with a long aaa, a sharp eee, short d, and emphasised nnn. But who cares?

[Richard Tarleton]

Don't be greedy, Rc... you really don't need THAT much rope...

I was thinking of this, and these

[burning dog]

Is it Rer-Cartes, Arr-Cartes or Err-Cartes?

[ahinton]

Gratuitous and insulting personal attacks on anyone, be they R3 presenters or anyone else, are as unwelcome here as they are unnecessary; accordingly, I deplore Rcartes' examples of this ("I attack, therefore I am", peut-être?). The suggestion that Sarah Walker doesn't know what she's talking about is arrant nonsense unsupported by facts. Whilst I share the reservations of some others here as to the content and presentational manner of morning programmes on R3, I suspect that their presenters do not have overall control over such issues; yes, we could do without the tweets, phone calls, texts, emails and general dumbing-down chatty "classical-music's-really-quite nice" style that's presumably encourage in some programmes with a view to boosting ratings (whereas in reality it perhaps affects them adversely), but that's quite another matter from what Rcartes is braying about. It's interesting tht he/she has chosen to share this attitude here rather than simply write privately to Ms Walker with his views (not that I'm recommending any such thing, of course!). As usual, JLW has responded to this with more pesuasive eloquence than I can muster - for which many thanks - and Mr Pee's endorsement of Oddball's latest response is likewise to the point.

[ahinton]

I was thinking of this, and these

My preferences is for the second of these, to the extent of illustration how Rcartes' stuff can be paved over as it deserves to be.

[jean]

Is it Rer-Cartes, Arr-Cartes or Err-Cartes?

A superfluous question - it is perfectly possible to pronounce any two consonants seamlessly together.