VOICE ACTING

When People Are PAID To SPEAK, Shouldn't

They Pronounce The Words Correctly?

September 5, 2017



By Rick Gordon By Rick Gordon

Voice Talent & Owner

e-LearningVoices.com & CommercialVoices.com



First, let me tell you that I am not a linguist, an English teacher, nor in any way do I profess to be a bonafide pronunciation expert on the North American English language.



But I am an experienced broadcaster with an ear for pronunciation.



And a pet peeve of mine is getting worse every day.



I don't know if you are like me, but when you hear professional TV broadcasters read English it can make you wonder how they were even considered for the job.



(I am probably awakening an awareness in your head that will antagonize you forever. Sorry about that.)



Below is a list of a few words for which I won't even give the correct pronunciation because you know them already - but this is what the "real" words have become.



Even seasoned broadcasters are caught up in this. Don't they realize that many children learn pronunciation from Professional Speakers who are paid to speak?



What about all the immigrants learning English for the first time? Our language is hard enough to learn as it is, let alone steering students down the wrong path from Day One.



IN VOICE OVERS, TOO



I've noticed the same sort of degradation in voice over spots lately, and think it stems from the desire to have more 'conversational' reads.



Unfortunately, though, people equate 'conversational' with 'sloppy' and not the simpler things - like a glottal stop or using contractions.



We might be hyper-aware of this due to the genre we specialize in. For instance, E-Learning tends to hang around longer than a spot and is listened to more closely, so you have to be more exacting in pronunciations.



FOR EXAMPLE ...



Let me give you a practical example. Let's say you and I are talking face-to-face and you are telling me:

"Tomorrow I am going to read the reform bill about re-organizing the Olympics into a more encompassing worldly event. I think they have hit on some hot topics and the idea is to have an election of officials which more represents a worldly population."

I know you know how to pronounce all these words. But this is what you might end up saying:

"Ta-morrow I am going to read the rah-form bill about re-organizing the Awe-lympics into a more encompassing worldly ah-vent. I think they have hit on some hot topics and the idea is to have an ah-lection of ah-fficials which more represents a worldly population."

If you read this script in front of a microphone, chances are you would get it right because you are being paid to speak.



But that's the problem. This is not happening in the broadcast world.



Well, that's my mini rant for the day. I feel better already.

BTW: I took the liberty of sharing my frustration with some colleagues, whose replies appear below the "rant list." I greatly appreciate their thoughts and participation!

WORD RANT LIST ...



Do you hear what I hear? Below is the "original" word, followed by what many broadcasters are saying ...

Before ... Ba-four

Behind ... Ba-hind

Didn't ... Dint

Eleven ... Al-levan

Elite ... Ah-leet

Emissions ... Ah-missions

Essential ... Ass-N-chill

Experiment ... Ax-pear-a-mint

February ... Feb-you-ary

Fredericton ... Fredrickten

Hundred ... Hun-erd

Immediately ... Ah-meed-e-atly

Internet ... Inner-net

News ... Nooze

Official ... Ah-fish-al

Olympics ... Aw-limpics

Recorded ... Ra-corded

Remain ... Rah-main

Remainder ... Rah-mainder

Remained ... Ra-mained

Reminder ... Rah-minder

Reserves ... Ra-zerves

Return ... Ra-turn

Review ... Ra-view

Temperature ... Temp-a-chur

The letter "W" ... Dubb-a-you

To ... Ta

Today ... Ta-day

Tomorrow ... Ta-morrow

Toronto ... Ta-ranna

Tuesday ... Choose-day

Wouldn't ... Wu-nt VO COLLEAGUES REPLY ...

"Nicely written - sweet and to the point! :)"



- Mike McGonegal

Thanks!"

"It's important for talent to understand the level of formality required by their copy and their character as it relates to the target listener. Today's VO world is all about being 'relatable,' which means that we have to sound comforting to the person we are talking to. Under-enunciation on a detailed medical module would stand out like a sore thumb, whereas over-enunciation on a barista training for Starbucks would be equally jarring."

- J. Michael Collins



"In response to Rick's rant, Bravo, Rick! I know a lot of folks insist diction must be softened nowadays to achieve that conversational vibe we all must generate, but when it strays into outright errors, it gets my nanny goat. I'd like to add three fingernails-on-the-chalkboard phrases I've heard come out of the mouths of professional speakers. 'Anyways' instead of 'anyway.' We don't say 'anywheres.' People! Please. It's anyway. There is no 'besides the point.' You are not 'besides' the bus stop. It is beside the point. And I sprayed my dashboard with coffee last week when I heard an NPR announcer say, 'That's a whole nuther thing' (fume, spit, sputter, shiver, twitch). There. Are. No. Words."

- Kim Handysides



"I find it disconcerting that so many professional voice talents get lazy or sloppy in their pronunciations. Of course it's just as bad when they over enunciate! It drives me nuts to hear people add a syllable or letter to a word. Who knew that the word 'in' could be pronounced 'inah'? And don't get me started on 'off-ten' or 'off-en'!"

- Dan Hurst





- Jack deGolia

"The key take-away from Rick's article: make your voice-over performance a thing of choice, not subconscious default. CHOOSE the pronunciation you use to suit the copy, the client, and the audience. If you don't, you'll end up pigeonholed as an actor with a certain accent and only useful on a handful of specialized jobs."

"Very true how lax we have become, but it seems the pendulum has swung to a more approachable authentic read, which incorporates a more relaxed way with words. But you can add, 'Fur-ever' instead of 'Forever' 'cause I fall into that trap! I hate when I do that!"

- Linda Bruno

WHAT'S CAUSING THIS?



This topic really touched a nerve in John Kissinger , a voice actor and E-learning developer, who ponders why pronunciation is experiencing so much change ...

I think you've put your finger on something that is symptomatic of so many things: regionalization, generation, emulation ... and possibly other "-ations" as well.



Though I have a background in Anthropology, Linguistics wasn't my dedicated discipline of study. Nevertheless, in reflecting on what you've written, it seems to me that "common speech" is and always has been fluid - ever evolving.



In short, was there ever one proper way to speak English? I'm not so sure.



Regionalization



Here in the States, we might imagine that our ancestors must have spoken something approximating what once was the King's English - itself spoken differently in different parts of the kingdom. No doubt that was the case in your native Canada, too.



Or, perhaps our ancestors spoke heavily-accented, immigrant English from parts unknown.



Since then, from one corner of our respective countries to the others, English is highly localized to the people and place. Some are more dialectical. Others are just oddities.



Take my home state of Michigan, for instance. Here in the heart of the Midwest, we're perceived as having a desirable, neutral accent. Many broadcast professionals around the country are either from the Midwest, or trained to talk like they are.



Yet, in Michigan, as my late Aunt who moved south (to Virginia) when I was a boy told me after I chided her for acquiring a southern accent, "You Michiganders have an accent too - you talk through your noses."



Who knew? Many in Michigan have also noticed that we often and arbitrarily add "Ss" to the ends of business names and titles.



For example, "Ford" becomes "Fords," "Kmart" becomes "Kmarts," "Kroger" becomes "Krogers" and so on.



Further, noted voice talent, demo producer, and coach J Michael Collins has noticed that I habitually mispronounce the word "able" (ay-buhl), as "eble" (eh-buhl) - something I constantly have to watch out for. And my Dad has a habit of pronouncing "Tuesday" ("Toos-daay") as "Tuesdee" (Toos-dee).



Which brings me to my next point ...



Generation



How much of a deviation from commonly-accepted, "proper" English pronunciation is rooted in generational differences?



Think about the books you once read. Clearly, prose was vastly different between Victorian and Edwardian English and the writings of the far more colloquial and terse writer Ernest Hemingway.



What about the media we (those of us in our middle years) consumed in our collective youth - from 1950s-60s reruns on TV to how that language changed during the 1970s?



I Love Lucy sounds a lot different than All In The Family . What about the linguistic differences between Dragnet and CHiPs ?



What changed in the colloquial culture in the decades between the broadcast of those shows? One can certainly speculate. Perhaps proper Linguists know. But we can agree that they don't sound the same.



From then until now, spoken English has transitioned from more formal to more conversational. We certainly hear no end of that in the voice over profession in recent years - as we strive to sound less announcery and more real. Which also relates to...



Emulation



Yet another mechanism of shifting pronunciation that is worth consideration is the degree to which we emulate others we admire in our respective cultures.



Maybe it's the manner of speaking of a favorite celebrity, a sports star, a musician we wish we were more like, etc.



I think this is particularly common amongst younger folks as they strive to shape their own identities, independent of their parents, but perhaps not so independent of society at large.



The patterns of speech that one practices in one's youth are likely repeated in subtle, if not overt, ways in adulthood.



What to do about it?



So, which "-ation" is at the heart of it all? As with all things, there is seldom one root cause. Rather, it's probably a combination of the above and possibly more "-ations" that you might solicit from your readers.



But the larger question is, what is one to do about it?

Fight against the tide of inevitable change, or go with the flow?

Rail against lazy-mouth syndrome, or

Accept that that is how people talk now? I personally have no answer to that. But I can say that, in my view, there has never been one proper way to speak English, even though it feels as though there ought to have been.

Just my $.02. - John Kissinger

-------------------

ABOUT RICK

Rick Gordon is a veteran broadcaster and voice talent, and owner of the voice over online casting companies CommercialVoices.com and E-LearningVoices.com .



Webs: www.E-LearningVoices.com

Email: Webs: www.CommercialVoices.com Email: rgordon@commercialvoices.com



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