British broadcasters

[James E. Clapp]

Aaron E. Drews wrote:
>
> Another good place to find some answers might be the BBC website
> www.bbc.co.uk.  I don't know if they have a guide to pronunciation on the
> web, but it's worth a browse.

Thanks for the tip.  There seems to be much less there than one would hope,
but there is a very brief Q&A (it appears to be an interview with a pictured
but unidentified individual) that begins as follows:

                  [Heading:] BBC Pronunciation Unit

                  How does the BBC deal with the issue of
                  pronunciation?

                  The BBC, for a very long time, has had a
                  Pronunciation Unit whose sole purpose is to provide
                  advice to broadcasters on how to pronounce
                  anything at all. About 90% of what we do is proper
                  names – either people’s names or place names –
                  but we can actually make recommendations for the
                  pronunciation of anything at all from any language.

(How many U.S. broadcasting operations have such a unit?  I suspect that you
can count them on the fingers of one foot.)

Anyway, the URL for this page is
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/text2.htm

James E. Clapp