LL-L: "Pronunciation" LOWLANDS-L, 07.SEP.2000 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 07.SEP.2000 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Pronunciation

Ron wrote:

>the popular British media digest of a somewhat touchy subject like this
comes across as fed by and as designed to further feed prejudices held by
people who can't let go of events that ended
in the middle of the last century, ....  You need only watch British TV
sitcoms, even fairly new ones, that feature supposed Germans or refer to
Germans, goose-stepping all over the place, grimacing while shouting
ridiculous vowels and gutteral fricatives, something you find rarely, if
ever, in sitcoms produced in other English-speaking countries nowadays.
This kind of thing used to offend me, but these days I don't think it is
*my* problem.<

I think Ron is still offended and does have a problem, or he wouldn't have
responded in this way. The article was based on a talk by an _American_
"academic" delivered in Britain. Blaming a British newspaper for reporting
it seems to be a version of shooting the messenger. This is not considered
in Britain to be quite as serious an offence as shooting a fox, but it's
still not cricket.

For the benefit of Lowlanders unfamiliar with the British media, the Daily
Telegraph is a right-wing broadsheet, but I have no difficulty in imagining a
news item based on the same facts appearing in the Guardian or
Independent, which are papers of the centre. Without in any way wanting to
defend the general stance of the Telegraph I therefore have to say that it
requires a leap in logic to say that the aim of the article was to "feed
prejudices". I don't recognise the "British TV sitcoms" referred to. BBC1 is
repeating (yet again)  "'Allo, 'Allo" - a story based in Occupied France - but
that employs stereotypes of all the nations involved, including the British. I
suppose it is a bit more vicious where the Gestapo are concerned, but who is
going to find that objectionable? As for "events that ended in the middle of
the last century", the Imperial War Museum has had the bad taste to mount an
exhibition, opened today, commemorating the beginning of the London "Blitz" on
7 September 1940.

One small point in our favour, the British media commonly use the word
"Nazi" rather than "German" in referring to events of the Second World War.

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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