 Amedeo Modigliani |
You may well of heard of the theft of some very pricey paintings from the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. One of them was by the guy you can see to the left.
I am sure Modigliani would have been astounded at the stupendous price tag on his work. He died a pauper in 1920 at the age of 36. He would, I am sure, be equally astounded to hear, according to the reporter on BBC News last night, that he is not called [modiˈʎʎani] at all really, but [mɒɡdɪɡliˈɑ:ni]. Is it now BBC policy to appoint reporters who show a particular genius for finding the most ridiculous pronunciation for any word which is slightly out of the ordinary and who steadfastly refuse to make use of the excellent service provided by the BBC Pronunciation Unit?
Update And last night on the BBC quiz show Mastermind we had the extremely annoying John Humphrys asking a question about Rossini’s opera La Cenerentola, which he contrived to pronounce [tʃenərənˈtəʊlə] instead of [tʃeneˈrentola].
Graham would not have allowed that!
A great disgrace when the Beeb let Graham go!
Martin,
I entirely agree with you about the disgrace! However, I think that it is up to individual performers to check with the Pron Unit, and if they choose not to do so, there is little the staff of the unit can do about it. I am sure Graham will correct me if I have got this wrong.
“let go” is a bit of a euphemism – I was hounded out by a jumped-up ‘caretaker’ (his previous job was titled “Facilities Manager” and his English was so bad that his letters to the press had to be corrected by the BBC’s Press Office before they could be allowed to see the light of day) who lost no opportunity of disparaging the unit for three years. However, even had I stayed until retirement, I should have gone by now. My successors are much better qualified than I or my colleagues ever were: they all have PhDs in phonetics, and include Linda Shockey at the moment. Going back many years, Eugénie Henderson was the pre-war Advisory Committee’s assistant secretary for a time, so there has been a long history of well-qualified phoneticians. John is quite right – if broadcasters don’t consult the Unit, or its database, there is nothing that can be done. My post (now abolished, of course) was “Adviser”, not “Commissar” – as a Controller of Radio 3 once said.