So it’s statistics: Stuh-TISS-ticks, right
Not stuh-STISS-ticks
and absolutely not the emergent suh-SISS-ticks and its variant Stuh-Siss-Ticks.
Okay?

And for the homuncular George Bush, Tony Blair and apparently half the Australian federal government [who incorrectly say "Haitch" instead of "Aitch"]:
it is spelt nu.clear: New-clee-uh,
not new-CUE-luh

You know, it is not clever, or okay, to get it wrong when you know what is correct. It is just ignorant and lazy. It is giving the finger to those people who actually used their brains at school. It is making other people do the work you should have done and would have done if you weren’t so lazy. Sure, we’re intelligent enough to work out what you mean but, frankly, we’d rather be using our brains for other, far more interesting, things than translating your strange language, helping you make sense and working out your strange logic. And you are just lazy, yeah, well, whatever.

And by the way, ABC newsreaders:

Médecins Sans Frontières is French! Quoi? Mon dieu!
It is not meh-duh-sun-sands-frun-tears
Try it this way: Med Sang Song Frond Chairs. It’s sort of okay…for the ABC, of whom we have increasingly low expectations.

For the lady who presented Background Briefing last week, you live in Australia, not Astray-wya.

Russian President, Medvedev, is pronounced Med-vyeh-dev, not Med-ver-dev, or Myed-ver-dev, or even Med-ver-dyev.

And Serbian atrocity, Radovan Karadžic, is pronounced Ruddo-varn Karrer-jich (think Carriage Itch?). Anyway, not Karrer-ditch.

It’s not really all that hard. Not for you, who went to uni and all and studied media and the importance of speaking clearly and correctly on radio and maintaining journalistic standards and all that.

I’ve got an idea for you. Why not, if you’re not 100% certain of the pronunciation of a word, especially someone’s name, give SCOSE a call, you know, the ABC’s Standing Committee on Spoken English? That’s what they’re there for. It’s ALL they’re there for. Make them feel useful and give them a ring.

But lastly, ABC Marketing:

We know it’s not about the culture but about the money, but would it be asking too much, when you employ a radio/TV promo producer and announcer, to make sure they end up pronouncing Bryn Terfel’s name correctly?

Your voiceover lady called him Brin Tuh-FELL. That’s incorrect, no matter how many stupid people who don’t know anything call him that. Your job is to know. The ABC is supposed to set the standard. The ABC is the standard. You are, after all, selling product to people who do care about such things, the glitterati, the pompous, the cultured, the educated, the cognoscenti [kon-yuh-shen-tee], the élite (that’s Eeee-leet, is it, to you?).

Ma’am, it’s Brin TEHRrr-vell. Roughly. (Less roughly than what your announcer said.)

I mean, do you really want your own ignorance and that of the ABC, as well as its standards – which are in freefall – to be so clearly evident to so many millions of people? Isn’t it worth just a tiny bit of effort to do what you should have done in the first place?

[tags]language, pronunciation, ABC, ABC Australia, ABC TV, ABC television, ABC radio, ABC Marketing, ABC Commerce, Background Briefing, Radovan Karadzic, Brin Terfel, statistics, music, CDs, culture, money, standards, principles, SCOSE, Standing Committee on Spoken English, nuclear, nucular, Medvedev, Bush, Blair, Medecins sans Frontieres, values, cultural values, media values, media, Australian values[/tags]