The use of colloquialisms
This week on Over To You we have tried to nail the use of colloquialisms on the World Service as our debate on the use of informal English rages on with the help of a listener, who is also a linguistics expert, who joined forces with presenter Dan Damon to hammer it out.
If you've been listening to Over To You over the last few weeks you'll know that there's been an ongoing discussion about the use of the colloquialisms on the World Service in English.
It's a divisive subject as your emails prove.
Anthea Fallen Bailey in the US sent us her view that:
"Since the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú broadcasts to listeners of many different English dialects, it is imperative that non-slang words are used to ensure the highest level of comprehension and the lowest level of confusion amongst listeners. More personally, I am tired of hearing Americanese everywhere. Examples: "in depth" instead of "detailed" (yes, look on your website!); "utilise" instead of "use"; "input" instead of "contribution", "enter" or other appropriate word; "create" for everything (boring!) instead of "cause", "make", "build", "write", "compose", etc."
That's quite a list and I admit to having a bee in my bonnet about "I'm good" meaning "I'm well".
Kathleen Mere from Muntelier in Switzerland has a bug bear about one phrase in particular.
"I cannot cope with the growing use of the expression 'to be honest' by your own reporters around the world. The obvious question is, if a Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú reporter does NOT say 'to be honest', does that mean that what he or she says is not the truth?
Well as the messages about this have become ever more thoughtful and interesting we thought it was time to see what one of the World Service's best known voices had to say on the subject.
So we asked Dan Damon from World Update to join forces with trilingual listener Gerd Opheim in the Over To You studio to make the final pronouncement on this topic.
You can judge for yourself by listening to the podcast and we look for to more of your emails, calls, texts and tweets.
Rajan Datar is the presenter of Over To You
Over To You is your chance to have your say about the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service and its programmes. Broadcast times can be found by clicking here.
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