Learn to Pronounce!

There are certain words in the English language which are habitually mispronounced by most people, and it drives me nuts. The pronunciation is clear from the spelling; yet folks constantly mispronounce.

Here's a short list.

"Tempachure" This one bothers me a lot. In fact, the mispronunciation is so common that I genuinely believe that most people do not know the correct way. Ugh!

"Febyuary" Is it really that hard to pronounce the 'r' after the 'b'?

"Fitty" This one grates on my nerves. When you can't even pronounce "fifty," I... bleah. This one is now working its way into advertising, and in ten years, everybody but me will be saying it that way.

"Athalete" Why the compulsion to put a vowel between the 'th' and the 'l'? Jesus...

"Ezzackly" Yes, exactly.

"Gummint" This is more an Americanism, but it's being heard more frequently north of the border, these days.

"Ax" If I'm greeted one more time by a young person asking, "Hey, dude, can I ax you something?" I'll scream.

There are others; but these are the ones which really grate on my nerves.

Now, that said, I know that there are plenty of people out there who have bothered to learn the correct pronunciation of words; the problem is that there are plenty more who haven't. It's such a basic thing; we use language every single day of our lives.

Be well,

-Bill

Weasels

Over the years, I've noticed a few disturbing trends in advertising. They are more or less obvious, but I'm going to point them out anyway.

The first and most obvious trend is advertising pollution. Apart from when outdoors, it's growing increasingly difficult to find something at which to stare, which is not sporting some sort of advertising.

Just in my lifetime, there has been a huge explosion in the amount of advertising to which we are exposed. Print, radio and television were already advertising media; but now we have the Internet; this post is probably surrounded by ads.

Just on a quick glance around the room here, I notice the following brand names: Lenovo, HP, Epson, Grand & Toy, Bell, Fluid, LCBO, Band-Aid, Friskies, Kleenex, Samsung, Tensor, McDonald's, Logitech, C. Crane--and I'll stop there. It's not a big room; maybe four metres square.

We really can't escape it. Even our clothing carries brand logos.

It's only going to get worse.

Second up, I don't appreciate the number of weasel words and phrases that advertisers use. "My husband was showing the signs of a heart attack, so he chewed..." They carefully don't state that he was, in fact, having a heart attack; only that he had the symptoms. Another good (and recent) example is a particular website touting its price reviews. "When I see the Good Price badge, I absolutely trust that." That's nice; you must be a trusting soul to give it a thumbs-up without any supporting evidence.

The third trend, and the one that I find most unreasonable, is the use of "simulations" of the product in action. Wait a minute. If you are advertising for a product, shouldn't you actually have to show the product in actual use? There is currently a cleaning product using that method; and I'm sorry, but there ought to be a law about that. Show the actual product, under real-life conditions, in realtime.

What I do infer, when I see that kind of advertising, is that the product obviously can't cut it in real life; and I add that product to my Do Not Buy list. Their attempt to induce me to buy the product has backfired. I can't believe that nobody out there realizes this. It's not, to borrow the vernacular, rocket science.

There. I feel better. This better moment was sponsored by Pfizer.

Be well,

-Bill

FM DX

As regular readers are aware, I have been DX'ing now for some 45 years. I started very young.

Over those 45 years, I've always confined my search for long-distance stations to the AM broadcast band. Recently, however, I've become interested in FM DX'ing; and I recently gave it a try.

It's different. Propagation at FM frequencies happens infrequently, and is largely seasonal, occurring, at temperate latitudes, mostly in the warm months.

FM DX sounds differently from AM DX. There is next to no fluttering; signals vary mostly by strength. You'll find that, in general, FM DX is much more directional; from here in Ottawa, I've heard signals from upstate Near York (about 100 km to the south), but still haven't logged the station in Rockland, Ontario, some 40 km east.

Identification is a little harder than on AM; music tends to predominate, and so the music format can be a strong clue. Voice identifications are less frequent, and more often station nicknames (e.g. "Jack FM") are colloquially used. Also, station listings are harder to come by.

I've quickly learned that one invaluable resource for FM DX'ing is forecast maps. One good such example is the DX Info Centre, maintained by William Hepburn. To cut to the quick: watch for a coloured area shading where you live. You can advance the forecast with the left and right arrows.

My total thus far is modest: 37 stations. But, it's a beginning; let's see where it stands in 30 years. ;)

Be well,

-Bill