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Another Paxmanism

I admire Jeremy Paxman quite a lot. Mainly because he is not as saccharine as many other tv faces. He can be grumpy and acerbic, which is quite refreshing at times. However, he is most assuredly not very good at pronouncing words in foreign languages. He is, amongst many other things, the quizmaster on the long-running BBC programme University Challenge. In last night’s programme he perpetrated ˌdɒməˈniːkəʊ for the Italian name Domenico.

Yes, I know it doesn’t matter very much (usually). Yes, I know it must be hard when you are reading rapidly on air. Yes, I know I should get a life…

But it still GRATES!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Phonetics, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

4 Responses to “Another Paxmanism”

  1. Genevieve says:
    January 10, 2012 at 5:28 pm

    Yes I agree with you. Slightly different complaint I know but I am still recovering from Jeremy telling one of the teams on University Challenge last week to ” listen up” urgh! I am still a fan of his though. He still does everything better than anyone else would!

  2. JWL says:
    January 11, 2012 at 10:52 am

    I like his astringent style of political etc interviewing but I resent his short-changing us over his casual approach to pronunciations. More at my Blog 383.

  3. Petr says:
    January 11, 2012 at 8:26 pm

    Paxman gets to read the questions before the show is transmitted, does he not?
    Paxman knows in all probablility how to consult a dictionary, does he not?
    Paxman is alimented as a gentleman by the TV company, is he not? Three ‘yes’? So he owes his viewers to do his job properly.

  4. Alex Rotatori says:
    January 14, 2012 at 10:39 am

    I’ve been watching BBC World News for a couple of hours now and they’re talking about the Italian cruise ship, Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the coast of Tuscany yesterday evening.
    In this report by Andy Moore we hear that the island near to which the ship sank is called [ˈʒiːliəʊ], but no! Italians call it /ˈdʒiʎʎo/, with an AFFRICATE in the first syllable. Maybe Mr Moore just wanted to put on a Tuscan accent…

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16559991

    And another newsreader, talking about the little town of Santo Stefano (that’s where the passengers have been taken), called it [ˈsæntəʊ steˈfɑːnəʊ]. Italians ALWAYS stress the first syllable in ‘Stefano’!

    (Btw, I live close to Porto Santo Stefano and I can see the Island of Giglio from my window…)

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