more time-delay issues on the Olympic front

[Tom Zurinskas]

Sports announcers are uniquely in the present tense.  Most of them come from athletics and speak the lingo of the lockerroom.  Past tense just doesn't seem to be sporty enough apparently.

Of interest is the amount of awe-dropping in the Olympic broadcasts.  One fellow says Ah-stralia.  I wonder how that ah-dio goes over with the general ah-dience.

I've been in Roanoke VA for a week or so.  Of interest is the word "all" is said ~oul, (as in "out" with and "l").

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.




> Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:34:45 -0400
> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Re: more time-delay issues on the Olympic front
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: more time-delay issues on the Olympic front
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 3:59 PM -0500 8/16/08, Barbara Need wrote:
>>...
>>P.S. So far, all further tokens of "tonight" or "this evening" I have
>>heard have been uttered by announcers, so those are probably
>>intentional. I have heard no further athlete generate it. I will keep
>>listening.
>>
> I did just notice the NBC voice-over announcer mixing his tenses with
> abandon in talking about the 100 meter race that they are about to
> present from last night (i.e. on 12-hour or so tape delay), referring
> to how "in the Beijing final last night two Jamaicans...race for
> gold" in the 100 meter event. "Coming up next, the explosion of speed
> that emerged in that match up." (Followed by a couple of other
> present and past tenses.)
>
> LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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