TV3 has a line-up of excellent regular newsreaders, both male and female. They present the news clearly and cleanly, and manage to avoid the contrived and cringe-making wordplay that litters TVOne’s bulletins.

However, the final bulletin for the year had the female newsreader labelling Diane Foreman an ‘entreprenyure’ – rhymes with ‘manure’ – and her male counterpart telling us about ‘nucyular’ capacity and Russell Brand’s ‘sex addition’. Tonight’s presenters are both familiar faces, but the channel didn’t give us their names. Wisely, perhaps.

Accurate pronunciation should be a prerequisite for  those who make their living presenting television and radio bulletins, as should the ability to read short pieces aloud without making a complete twit of oneself, and just because we’re in the silly season doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect English-as-a-first-language from the network’s stand-in presenters.

Take two aspirin and wait for Caroline, Hillary, Mike and Simon to return…

‘Well, we’re going to kick-start the economy by selling off the Southern Alps.’

Now you may hear:

‘So, we’re going to kick-start the economy by exporting beneficiaries.’

This sounds a bit odd – and it is a bit odd.  Starting a sentence this way turns ‘so’ into a type of conjunction and implies that you are expanding on or explaining something that has preceded it:

‘Social Welfare is costing too much and we need more exports, so we’re going to…etc’

But in this strange new construction nothing has preceded ‘so’. You’ve got a conjunction hanging in mid-air with nothing to join up.

‘What are you doing for Christmas this year?’

‘So I was just saying to Nigel that we should consider going to Afghanistan.’

You’ll frequently hear ’so’ at the beginning of a question, but in this case it’s logically attached to the previous answer:

‘…and then we’re going to clear-fell the kauri forests and grow our own palm oil.’

‘So how are you going to get support for the legislation?’

We became hyper-aware of this new habit of preceding every answer with ‘so’ a few years back when we were media training a young woman in the communications department of a major corporate. She was unable to start an answer with any other word. For a while it seemed that this was linked to gender; you heard it only from women. Now it has spread across the gender divide. This isn’t unexpected, because many socio-linguistic changes begin with women. Today it has even been taken up by our male politicians.

In the National Party opening broadcast, John Key began each answer to the ‘spontaneous’ audience questions with ‘So…’

A few nights ago I noticed Russel Norman doing the same thing in an interview, and I’ve heard other politicians come out with this construction on The Nation and Q+A.

I’m confidently expecting our new Governor General to give it the stamp of approval in the Speech from the Throne at the next opening of Parliament.

It’s a bit disconcerting, but then a living language is always doing interesting and illogical things.  ‘So’ – it’s probably here to stay, and we’ll eventually get used to it. But I still think it’s odd!

Once upon a time aspiring radio and TV stars were sent off for voice coaching before they were allowed to pollute our airways. At the very least they had to have pleasant voices and excellent diction.

No longer. Our TV screens are now populated in prime time by young women whose voices could etch glass at 40 paces and men who happily mangle the language to the point of incomprehensibility.

My current personal favourite is the new dialect of Sainsbury, to be heard on Close Up most evenings at 7pm. I’ve heard the odd Sainsburyism from news reporters on both One and Three and once, to my astonishment, from Mike McRoberts.  It’s clearly the coming fashion and we should all adopt it as soon as possible.

Visitors filling in time between World Cup matches may require help with translation before they can fully appreciate Close Up. They may be so impressed with what they hear that they want to start speaking Sainsbury themselves.  Here’s a little pronunciation guide for the uninitiated and the eager:

Harold – as in ‘Harold is that dodgy Toyota you’re selling?’

Harris – as in ‘Harris it that you can’t kick the damn ball between the posts?’

Hurrah – as in ‘Hurrah you, now that you’ve had liposuction?’

Harrever – as in ‘Harrever will you get that money out of the country, Mr Hotchins?’

Harroffen – as in ‘Harroffen will Hone hongi Willie before the election?’

Harrintristing – as in ‘Harrintristing! And where did you dispose of the body?’

Feel free to expand this guide – your contributions of any new Sainsburyisms are welcomed.

Next week: How to copy Key – an exercise in syllable reduction.

Thanks to Greg Goodyer.

I want to let you into a little-known secret:  that thing you’ve got pinned to your lapel or clutched in your hand – that’s what we call a microphone.  A microphone is a magical device for picking up sound, and the sound it picks up best is the sound that is closest to it – your voice. 

So even if you’re surrounded by roaring crowds, or the camera is across the road, YOU DON’T NEED TO SHOUT, because your microphone is only centimetres away from your mouth.

It is bizarre to witness people who appear to be right in front of you yelling their heads off. Bizarre, annoying, unprofessional and totally unnecessary. It’s even weirder when it’s interspersed with voice-over commentary at a normal level.

There are rules for the voice level you use to camera.  If you’re in close-up it’s intimate, if it’s in medium-close-up (that’s the shot most commonly used in interviews) or mid-shot (to the waist) it’s conversational.  A little more voice is appropriate in a full shot.  Only in long-shot, when the presenter is shown at a distance, should you ever use full projection (which is quite a different thing from shouting, petals!).

However, it would appear that our TV networks have never bothered to teach their on-camera people how to use a microphone.

Deafened by the audience racket around them, netball commentators howl at us, oblivious to the fact that the miracle of sound engineering means we can hear them perfectly well at normal level.

Back Benches presenter Wallace Chapman bellows like a livestock auctioneer whether he’s talking to the camera, the pub audience or his guests. Even if this programme weren’t hopelessly amateurish, I couldn’t watch it for more than five minutes. 

News reporters don’t do themselves any favours by choosing to present their reports in busy streets. There’s usually an alternative, but even if there isn’t, the same rule applies: Pitch your voice to the camera shot, not to the camera.

Brooke Howard-Smith – you are excused.  Yes, it still gets on my nerves when you shout, but eccentric talent should always be encouraged.  Just hand me the ear-plugs, please.

 And the rest of you:  please learn the basics of presentation – and STOP SHOUTING AT ME!!

The most noticeable change, and the one most often commented on, is that most Kiwis pronounce “i” (as in “it) as if it were “uh” (as in “the”).  So you get the infamous “fush and chups” that Seedneesiders find so hilarious.

In spoken English lightly pronounced, unaccented vowels revert to this neutral “uh” sound, the schwa. That is, with the exception of “i”. So while rugged will be pronounced as “ruggud”, rigid should be pronounced as “rijid”. Except here, where you’ll hear it rendered almost universally as “rijud” or even “rujud”. And it would seem that none of us is immune.  Listen to our newsreaders.  With the exception of those on National Radio, the “i” sound is as flat as a pancake.

For some reason, the presence of “l” seems to drag our vowels to the centre even faster.  Thus Wellington becomes “Wullungtun”, and the Alps slide inexorably  towards the “Elps”. I’m predicting it won’t be too long before we’re climbing the Southern Ulps.

A lot of people put this centralisation down to laziness.  Linguists will tell you that it’s just a development in our accent, neither good nor bad.  My own theory, for what it’s worth, is that because we all talk with our mouths half-closed, it’s easier to pronounce the central vowels, and the schwa is the easiest one of all.  

One of the first exercises I recommend when I’m voice coaching forces the teeth apart and provides a darn good work-out for the tongue, lips and facial muscles.  Within a couple of weeks, diction is clearer and the vowels start to shift back to their original position with little effort.  

And laziness? No, I don’t think so.  If we were just lazy why would we say “showen” and “knowen” when it’s much easier to say “shown” and “known”?

We’re just sliding towards the centre, and unless there’s a massive outside influence that affects all our young people, I don’t think there’s any way to stop it.  And it’s not all bad.  At least people overseas will stop mistaking us for Australians!

What is driving me to the borders of insanity is the writing.  Almost every damned sentence starts with a present participle.  “Waiting for the bus, she…” “Calling for an ambulance, they…” “Suffering from terminal sneezing, he…”   There’s no crime in starting a sentence like this. It can be quite a useful construction – occasionally.  But not one sentence, after another, after another…

The effect of this patterned writing is exacerbated by the narrator, who delivers the script with an equally patterned delivery and all the animation of a stuffed toy.

Put this down to pedantry if you like, but us pendants can be ferocious when roused (just read the letters to the editor in any newspaper), and no-one wants us hurling the furniture at our telly sets.

So please, stop this lazy, annoying writing – and give the narrator several cups of strong coffee before the record.

As a student of linguistics I’m fascinated by the changes in our natural accent; as a voice coach I’m less enthusiastic.  It’s not the accent that bothers me, it’s what we’re doing to it.

New Zealand voices, particular those of young women, are becoming increasingly and unpleasantly nasal. This annoying nasal twang is epidemic in young female news reporters on television; Fran Dresler from The Nanny is positively mellifluent in comparison. Even one or two of our female newsreaders sound as though they have terminal sinusitis.

My automatic response to a strong nasal twang is to put my fingers in my ears.  This is not a good noise.  In fact, it’s horrible.  But even if these women were aware of it, they wouldn’t know how to fix it. And don’t get me started on their wretched rising terminals. There’s a future post on that!

Our TV networks no longer give their on-air staff voice training, or expect them to do any work on their voices in their own time.  Most journalists have probably never had a speech lesson in their lives.  If they have naturally pleasant voices this may not matter – though many of them seem to have no idea what a microphone is for, or how to match their on-camera voice with their voice-over commentaries. I can’t help thinking our viewing pleasure would be greatly enhanced if our networks considered that a good voice was as important as a journalism diploma and a pretty face and invested in some vocal training.

Is this old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy?  I don’t think so.  We no longer have a perpetual grizzle of discontent about pronunciation in the Letters to the Editor pages, but every time someone writes about voices on radio or TV, those pages are flooded with responses. 

I’m not suggesting for one moment that we should revert back to being mini-Brits.  Heaven forefend.  I celebrate our new-found confidence as a nation, and the consequent pride in our identity. But I do think we’re entitled to expect to hear pleasant voices on the air regardless of which accent we’re hearing.  Radio New Zealand still gives us a voices that are easy to listen to.  It makes sure there is always someone keeping an ear on standards.   Why can’t the vastly better resourced television networks manage to do the same thing?

There’s no doubt our accent has changed. Dramatically. In news reels from the 50s and 60s all the women sound like modified versions of the Queen.  We took her English very seriously in those days.  Radio announcers were auditioned around the country and the Chief Announcer and his deputies in Wellington played the tapes and said Yay or Nay to star-struck hopefuls. Mostly Nay.  The few who were accepted were put through rigorous voice training and monitored constantly.

In those days the only accent heard on New Zealand radio was Received Pronunciation, the neutral Southern English of the BBC World Service.  New Zealand announcers, with not a regional vowel amongst them, were welcomed over there with open arms – almost a guaranteed job for your OE.

The best and brightest journalists lined up for jobs when our radio and television news services started, and many were firmly sent away to work on their voices and then apply again. New Zealand radio wasn’t ready for Kiwi voices.  We found Fred Dagg and Lyn of Tawa funny as much for their broad accents as for their comedy.

When our first soap opera, Close to Home, beamed out from Wellington in the early 70s, there were cries of outrage across the country.  Some of these actors had New Zealand accents – quel horreur!  People on our telly were supposed to sound like Brits. We’d never be able to hold up our heads again.

Slowly we got used to hearing our own voices, but then came ten wilderness years without a New Zealand soap and, to many people’s surprise, the same howls of protest were heard when Shortland Street hit our screens in the early 90s. This time it seemed an Aussie accent was fine for soaps, but a Kiwi one was cringe-making.

In the 21^st century the standard accents on local radio or television programmes are Kiwi ones, and thank goodness for that.  I don’t want our kids cringing at our natural accent.  Equally I don’t want harsh, unpleasant voices assailing my ears while I catch up with the news of the day.

Some time ago Jane Clifton wrote an excellent piece on our changing accent for the Listener.  Well worth a look if you missed it.