This is me throwing my dummy out the pram, stamping my foot and threatening to thcream and thcream...I just watched a BBC4 programme about St Petersburg. It was fabulous to look at and - I think - gave a fair picture of the history of the city and the artistic life there now. I imagine the two presenters chose what to film and they seem to come from an academic or fine art background so they knew what they were doing. But can anyone tell me why they didn't make any effort to pronounce any of the Russian names they came across correctly?
I am fed up with this. Is it lack of education? British snobbery? A harking back to the Empire when foreign names didn't matter but could be reduced to a standard English (mis-)pronunciation? I can see how Deolali (the name of an Indian town with a military sanatorium and a transit camp) could be reduced to doolally and used as an insult in the 19th century. Or how Ypres became, in the mouths of largely uneducated British WW1 servicemen, Wipers. But we're talking here about apparently educated people on the telly in the 21st century. What would it take for them to learn how to pronounce place names and artists' names correctly?
It's not that difficult in Russian: once you know the rhythm of the language, the pronunciation is quite easy.
But it's not just Russian names that get the British treatment. French, Spanish, Italian, Greek - all of them are ripe for massacre in the mouths of British people. It's not the first time I've heard a Brit say 'merci beau-cup' or 'grassy-arse' - and really mean it.
It's just bloody rude is what it is.
The St Peterburg team are to visit Barcelona soon, heaven help us. What will they make of the Catalan names?
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