Every Prime Minister seems to have one word or phrase which they delight in pronouncing oddly. John Major couldn't say the word 'want'. It came out as 'wunt'. Tony Blair couldn't say the word 'assure' - it came out as "ashoooer". And the next Prime Minister gives a particularly ur-Scottish pronounciation of the word 'constituency'. It comes out as if Rab C Nesbitt were saying it. 'Cn-sti-youuuu-ncee' - or something like that. Rory Bremner will be very pleased indeed.
Bliar's pronunciation has changed a bit in the last year or so.
ReplyDelete'It' now comes out more like 'urt', and 'shown' now has an extra syllable - 'sho-wern'.
I heard him once say how 'stoic' he'd had to be - but pronounced it as one syllable sounding like 'oik'. Which he really is - but perhaps an 'Oh-ick'
Bremner was brilliant on Andrew Marr yesterday.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't help noticing that our PM in waiting didn't hang around to listen to Rufus Wainwright
At least Cameron has the sense not to even try pronoucing the words he has difficulty with like "controlled immigration", "low taxes", "equal opportunity", etc
ReplyDelete;-)
Rather than being chuffed Bremner will be distraught that Broon has been warned and can largely avoid saying the C word ever again.
ReplyDeleteSurely Blair's word was "world", which always came out as "weld".
ReplyDeletefascinating insight, iain, keep up the good wk.
ReplyDeleteOh, just shut the fuck up ! Scottish people pronounce things differently and sometimes it is just loverly.
ReplyDeleteThink of the divine Kirsty Wark and her delightful Scottish accent.
And where would we be if Annually Retentive didn't have Rob Brydon and Rhys Ifans but a couple of estuary English bloggers.
This slagging off of Gordon Brown for things that having nothing to do with politics or policy is mind numbingly tedious..Change the script..
I'm sick of hearing the Bogeyman go on about var-lues. And along with all Scots, millions comes out as miw-yuns.
ReplyDeleteBrown ‘must use his honeymoon period to strengthen power of Prime Minister’
ReplyDeletehttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1785002.ece
"Told" by whom? Brown's Stalinism is creeping in on day one. Purely for the public's own good of course.
In The Times on Saturday, Gráinne Gilmore drew attention to Brown's multiple billions:
ReplyDeleteGordon Brown is idiosyncratic when it comes to talking about money. He always adds a spurious “s”. Instead of saying, “I have saved £3 billion by cutting out free coffee at the Treasury”, he says, “I have saved £3 billions”. As that extra “s” slides through his teeth, it almost sounds like a challenge: “£3 billionsss, count them!”
I don't give a **** how Gordon pronounces his words but his line of "nuthin' to do with me guv" about the "Blair" government's policies particularly those which The Treasury was directly responsible for is beginning to grate just a mite !
ReplyDeleteGordon needs to have subtitles when he refers to endogenous growth theory and with simple Scots phrases like 'awa' tae fuck.
ReplyDeleteIain--you're not aurally observant if I can use that phrase.
ReplyDeleteWhat Brown does is to omit the second "t", so that it comes out "consti--uency", the dreadful Glasgow glottal stop. It is reviled by many Scots as well ,so please don't generalise--I don't imagine you all speak in Kent like the cast of East Enders.
As for bebop--talk about the pot calling the kettle black!!
Drawring room anyone?
For a man who says he wants to listen a lot I'm sure you have all noticed that he dominates all interviews and overrides the interviewer almost constantly.
ReplyDeleteRichard Havers said...
Bremner was brilliant on Andrew Marr yesterday.
Agreed but did you notice on his last session that they left the mikes on the attendees on - somewhat muted and you could hear all their laughter UNTIL the very last section when he was taking the P*** out of Gordo and it went totally quiet.
Stalinesque in the extreme!!!!
PS Personal question about Gordo no 94 - has he got webbed feet?
Maybe I'm wrong on this, but don't a lot of politicians mispronounce the word 'Secretary'? Blair does it, Howard does it, and I'm pretty sure Cameron does too. They all pronounce it like it's spelled 'Secretree', probably because it cuts out a syllable and makes sentences flow better.
ReplyDeletewould you make the same shallow comments if he were Indian or Black Iain?
ReplyDelete"Secret'ry": that's not wrong, it's just English. Secreterry sounds awful.
ReplyDeleteTony has English consonants and Scottish vowels, that is why he sounds like that. This is also common in rural Northumberland.
ReplyDeleteIt's not so much pronounciation, it's the sheer difficulty of deciphering him. Partly due to the monotonous high-speed gabble and partly that you become unable to make any sense of it because you're involuntarily focusing on the gulping and chin wobbling. It grabs the attention and whatever he may have been trying to communicate just gets lost along the way. But maybe that's a blessing in disguise.
ReplyDeleteShame he cant pronounce "economics 101". Frank Field todays points out the complete lack of logic in his economic policies and the failure of his 'new deal' programme.
ReplyDeleteWhen will Osbourne ask him to explain the logic of pouring 100's of millions into this daft scheme to get people off the long term unemployed list whilst at the same time flooding the country with migrant workers???
Brown is paying into the EU to help poland et al catch us up
He is paying out to 5.3million people in the the UK not to work or with income support
he is paying into these schemes like new deal
he is paying billions extra to local authorities to deal with the 5 million migrants here
local councils today are attacking the funding reductions for lcal authorities stemming from new calculations that reveal that there are LESS migrant workers than previously thought!!
He is also going to pour millions into joint equity housing schemes to alleviate the housing crisis caused by an overcrowded country
meanwhile all the money gets sent back to their own countries anyway.
The migrants are attracted by our minimum wage which deprives business of benefitting from cheaper foreign labour which results in more and more businesses going offshore
its not about immigration/racism its about o'level economics. These policies are fine individually but totally counterproductive when they are ALL employed in the same economy.
Is Gordon Brown's face, or that of a political commentator extolling the Thoughts of Chairman Brown, going to appear every time I switch on the TV for the next six weeks? Isn't there supposed to be something like parity of coverage for the main parties?
ReplyDeleteI think I might emigrate.
It's simple. He can't say words with lots of "sts" in because of his teeth - bigger and better and whiter and whistlier.
ReplyDeletecue shot of english language lying cold and dead on a carpet and bloke from Taggart announcing 'there's been a mudder!'
ReplyDeleteHilary Armstrong pronounces it like that as well.
ReplyDeletedale saddened by anti-maude tricks.
ReplyDeletethe thing is, iain, that francis may be a nice guy and all that but he does like chasing the quick buck and it's getting sticky when the buck comes from playboy, even indirectly.
no pun intended on sticky.
Broon getting hammered on C4, good stuff
ReplyDeleteYour talking rubbish again Iain.
ReplyDeleteBremner has only been happy for one day in his entire life. The 10th May 1997. The rest was torture. Any true person of the left should have had the same problem. At least when Thatcher was in power he did not feel so guilty for being personally reponsible for putting her there. Since 11th may 1997 he has been trying to make peace with his god.
Iain what a load of twaddle. I'm very surprised that you could stoop so low and play with peoples accent and speach mannerism.
ReplyDeleteReally thought you had more about you than that.
Reminds me of my school days when we moved up north and I got slapped with a ruler by my teacher for saying book the so called posh way in stead of boook. Then got told off by my mother for saying boook which she said was common.