VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[nick reed]

Hi eveyone,

BTW, that Accent post was mine. I changed a lot of things on my computer ta-night and I was not automatically logged-in as usual...

Though I thought I had lost all remnants of any regional accent and had ridded myself of any and all enunciation anomalies... while listening to one of my practice takes a week ago, I realized that I said "ta-night" rather than "to-night".

I was surprised how difficult it was for me to break this habit. I really had to slow down to do it and even then, if I wasn't extremely vigilent, I would slip.

Anyway, in the last week I noticed two different TV VO's making exactly the same error. Which leads me to the question -- is it really an error? That is, where does professional performance diverge from common English?

I sure am tired of hearing newscasters say "tore-ist" rather than "tourist" or "in-shore-ance" rather than "insurance". When did this start anyway?

What about people who put a "Z" in "resources"? I heard that on TV the other day too. I have known an oddball or two who pronounce it that way. Don't they realize that everyone else in the world is NOT saying it that way? :lol:

No doubt, all vo's have wrestled with this stuff. Please share your thoughts, observations, pet peeves, stories and such.

Nick

[Philip Banks]

Doing something for a German company yesterday I was aked to re-voice a section because I, in effect said Vyra. The sentence was

"The sensor parameters are set via a USB adapter cable using a common PC". Four vowel sounds in a row, so it had to be "Vi-ah ay you ess bee".

Deliver the above sentence at speed and in an engaging conversational manner, see what happens.

[CWToo]

[Deirdre]

The "ta" of tuh-night is usually just the unaccented schwa, represented in pronunciation guides as an upside-down lower-case "e".

Don't sweat the "tuh" of "tonight" or "today" as long as it's really being pronounced as "t'night" or "t'day". If you're really hearing the "tuh" you should practice a clearer enunciation, but the last thing you want to do is overpronounce it.

One of my producers used to hammer me about this phrase "log on to" as in
for more information, log on to www.db-cooper.com.
He insisted on LOG ON TOO.

I thought it sounded stiff and unreasonable. He would say "No one says 'log on TUH'". I agreed but made it clear that since there's no emphasis on it, it just sounds like "t-apostrophe".

Relentation ensued.


Fer instead of "for" is a definite pitfall as is git for "get".
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[kgenus]

I usually place a beat pause when have to read that phrase, sounds much more natural. "Log on ^ 2 www..."
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Genus

[Deirdre]

Even with the pause, I don't want to pronounce it "TOO" before anything that starts with a consonant sound. It just sounds stiff. Like saying a long-E "the" before a consonant start.

peeve:
The long-A sound for the article "a".
This does not exist in real speech --only in badly rendered VO.
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[johnbailey]

"Git your oil changed for jist $19.99!"
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John Bailey Voiceovers

[Deirdre]

Or how about the omnipresent mispronunciation of the ending "ING"?

Even one of the morning anchors on NPR says "EEN".

Ick, ick, ick.
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[Frank F]

O.K., coo-pon (correct) or cue-pon for cupon, and ul-right or all-right (correct), be-cuz or be-cause (correct), vi-ya or vee-a; and of course my yearly favorite - Feb-u-ary or Feb-ru-ary (correct)...

ahh dun went duwn ta da lib-ary in feb-u-ary ta c f dem tings r ul-right wih dem cue-pons, fer sur. c ya laater, cuz.

ain't ngrish grand?

Frank F

[ReyAnthony]

I actually have a problem with the phrase "log on to" when referring to a web page. Generally, you don't log on to a webpage. You can "log on" to the internet (if you dial-u, or a dial-up BBS. The phrase indicates an authentication. Some sites, however, require login information. That's still not a Log on.

More pet peeves:

When announcers say "click onto blahblah.com". Where do you click if it's not already a link on your screen? You don't logon or click on! You "visit" a website!

Announcers who don't pronounce the L sound in W. i.e. "dubuh-yoo"

People who say "WW Dot". There are 3 W's. Say them all or don't say any of them.

"News" people who don't know what the word "Literally" means.

ARGH!
(I scream at the TV alot.)

[Jeff McNeal]

I'll toss in another that I haven't seen mentioned so far...

"Hunnert" instead of "hundred".

I agree that over-enunciation is almost getting frowned upon as much as incorrect pronunication in some circles these days.

A perfect example of this can be found in Donald Sutherland's orange juice commercials of recent vintage. Sutherland always over-enunciates the letter "T" as in "Unsweetened". It stands out, because he makes such a point of hitting those "t's". It sounded like "unswee-tenned." Well, not anymore. While the early commercials had the trademark exaggerated "T's", which he has always read with, somebody must have told him to knock it off because the more recent commercals, the "t's" are softened considerably. And it isn't the result of a de-esser, either.

The thing that drives me nuts the most though, no doubt because I hear it the most, is when an announcer swallows their "L's". So "Coming this fall" sounds like "Coming this faugh". If course, I can't be too critical. The guy who swallows his L's is probably earning somewhere around 4-5 million this year -- and probably next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.

[mikemckenzie]

[allensco]

Mike...you wouldn't be talking about a Jeff Jackson would you? He's still around this area.

[mikemckenzie]