The British Broadcasting Cor-' poration has' once, more trought criticism down on its own head by announcing some more rec tions in regard to English prow nunciation, In the "Radio Timea" this week appears an article by Mr. A. Lloyd James, secretary of the Advisory Committee on spoken English, which deals with the latest recommendations made by the com mittee on the pronunciation of English words. The recommendations deal with some much debated pronunciations, and have as wad expected caused considerable eritie-Here are some of Mr, James' alonable some yeara ago. to pronounce the word." Na Which rhymed with hamm serum Tharecin because it came from Uy" the" seeomateuction sot Picendiy was been thrust open us very. largely Crean. Heerons ts. good Eaghish bub bad Greet, and the lanscal scholars ericise i, Thave fe ah increase the part of speakers to: ake the noun eamophone, sporting' of Ristorial)" sound Mike, "reekad® amd rumoured that" America for this, in any case, not. to, encourage. this fo ive the vowel yilabte its full value, In the new list such words as Levee are to be pronounced Levvy, hospital, with the accent on the first syllable while Riviera is spelt to be pronounced s Rivviaira, which does not seem to follow the general rule of simplicity. The first criticisms seems to have come from reek scholars over the word Eros," which according to its Green derivation should be pro nounced Er as in energy with a long 0. These people are positively horror struck. It certainly seems that the B.B.C. is a little tactless, and an article with such pronounced opinions as the one 1 have referred to is certainly rather patronising. Anyway if we have learnt to pro-ounce harem as harem, why should we go back to hairem or be accused of snobbery just because the B.B.C. say we are snobs, Wo would' far rather the Corporation say they intend using certain pronunciations than go into a detaited explanation of why they are going to use them. I suppose, though, whatever method they adopted they would bound to be criticised, and they evidently prefer criticism for something definite rather than receive endless opinions as to why, they have taken a certain course.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.