peterbirks: (Default)
[personal profile] peterbirks
I was writing something about Kwik Fit the other day, relating to a French private equity fund that bought the company on borrowed money, loaded the company up with debt, and then paid itself back the money with a massive dividend, having to sell Kwik Fit's insurance arm to reduce that newly created mountain of debt. Yes, this is modern capitalism at work.

Kwik Fit. Or is it Kwik-Fit? Or Kwikfit? Well, going to Kwik Fit's home page won't help you, because they spell it all three ways on the home page. This is a long-standing problem with some companies. I remember the days of the old Royal & SunAlliance, which at the time had only recently merged to create that name. For a year or so we would get releases referring to Royal and Sun Alliance, Royal & Sunalliance, and variations thereof. You would think that the branding people would get the precise message across to the PR people, wouldn't you?

In the end I established that it was Royal & SunAlliance by going to their headquarters and photographing the newly installed sign above the door.

Today, of course, the company has decided to impersonate the Republic of South Africa and calls itself RSA. That won't do, so I call it RSA Insurance (or RSA Group Holdings if referring to the holding company rather than the operating unit).

But all of this came to a head in my mind this morning when I realized why I was so annoyed by the way in which A History of The World in 100 Objects is introduced on the Radio. First of all, the title of the programme doesn't come in for about 90 seconds to two minutes (cue elvish-like music in the background and a portentous female voice), but then she gets the title wrong.

Or does she? What she says is
"A History of the World .... .... .... .... in A hundred Objects".

Yet when you look at the title on the page, or on the web, it's "A History Of The World In 100 Objects."
By my way of thinking, that is spoken as "A History Of The World In One Hundred Objects". If you want it spoken the other way, you have to write "A History Of The World In A Hundred Objects". So, either the web page and the Radio Times, or the speaker, is wrong.

This may appear pedantic, but it isn't really. Our use of iconic representations for numbers is an oddity of the Roman alphabet, stealing a non-phonetic pictogramic alphabetical system from the non-Roman world. But its use, because of this very peculiarity, gives of strict rules (because of the lack of phoneticism). "200" is pronounced "Two hundred". You can't interpret it (phonetically) as "a couple of hundred", or "Ten score". Because of these rules, I know that when I see the title "24", that it is not a TV series called "Two Dozen".

The interpolation of number oconivs in words has become irritatingly popular (e.g. "Se7en"), but it's a convention you can come to live with. But the misreading of actual numbers is a more worrying development, because it creates an unnecessary ambiguity surrounding pictograms that were previously unambiguous.

++++++++++++++++

A journalistic first?

Date: 2010-02-18 07:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] real-aardvark.livejournal.com
"In the end I established that it was Royal & SunAlliance by going to their headquarters and photographing the newly installed sign above the door."

I'm rather impressed by the sheer dedication to your craft.

You've got me thinking about whether the word "hundred" starts with a voiceless glottal fricative, or merely a voiceless epiglottal fricative. Obviously you, as a Londoner, would not be a reliable source on this. Equally I, as the son of a Cockney, would be even less reliable. Given the Germanic origins of "hundred," I suspect that it's glottal rather than epiglottal, and therefore requires as the indefinite article "a" rather than "an." I'm open to correction on this.

Ever tried to pronounce a Swedish word with "sj" in it? That's even worse. Go a hundred miles north of Stockholm, and it's the most reliable way to get the buggers falling off their sjairs with schoertlement...

Re: A journalistic first?

Date: 2010-02-19 10:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] peterbirks.livejournal.com
I have always thought that the "huh" sound at the start of "hundred" was unquestionably correct (not even giving of the debate that now surrounds "hotel" or "an historic / a historic". "An 'undred" would be mere Kiplingesque attempts to render into print a 19th century army sergeant's speech.

I have no idea about the Swedish "sj", but a Vietnamese chap complemmented me on my ability to master the Vietnamese consonantal sound that is half-way between "tim" and "jim" (thus rendered "tjim" in the guidebooks, whereas in fact you just have to remember where to put the tip of your tongue in your mouth while starting the word).

Accents are so much a matter of retraining mouth movements and,more difficulty, re-exercising the muscles in the mouth. I'm absolutely shite at it, but I have unending admiration for the people who are good at it. Then again, I have unending contempt for thick people (presumably, given your tale, of whom there are many 100 miles north of Stockholm) who find hilarious other people's problems with local consonants. The explanation is simple, and utterly non-humorous.


PJ

______

Re: A journalistic first?

Date: 2010-02-19 06:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] real-aardvark.livejournal.com
Now you're just sjoweing orff. "Tjim?"

I accidentally acquired twenty ducks eggs yesterday, and had to look up recipes therefore. Cambodian duck-egg salad, anybody?

Sounds quite tasty.

August 2023

S M T W T F S
  12345
6789101112
13 14151617 1819
20 212223242526
27282930 31  

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 30th, 2025 05:16 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios