insomniacfolder wrote:

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I wish I didn't feel so intimidated about ever posting in the Andy Murray section of the Andy Murray forum, but I do - a memorable post from AliBlahBlah summed it up

gerry70 wrote:

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Anyone else disappointed with BBC commentators or is it just me? 

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Luckily for me I grew up listening to Dan Maskell.
Everyone's always going to be a step down from there, so I just tune them all out these days.
I do wish Jonathan Overend still did regular tennis commentary though, as I found him tolerable.
I know the BBC have no friends here, but only vehement and regular detractors on the forum; I still like their tennis production best though. I don't need anything other than the pictures really, without interruption, be that from advertising, expert analysis or other gimmicks (oh boy! have I ever phrased that sentence very particularly; with malice of forethought even)

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Ah, dear old "Ooh, I say" Dan, God rest his soul.  I'll second those sentiments.

I'm not especially anti-Beeb.  I don't have satellite/cable channels, so welcome the "free-to-air", ad-free coverage of Wimbledon.  Nor do I have a problem with Virginia Wade, who seems regularly to get up RJA's nose, & many of the other BBC commentators, with the possible exception of "Bouncy" & John Lloyd, but, as a professional linguist, I find myself tearing my hair out when I hear Sue Barker et al regularly failing to do their homework & referring to Garbiñe Muguruza, for example, as "Garbine", rhyming with "Carbine", or Florin Mergea as "Mer-gay-a"  (it's "mer-dzha", for God's sake [a hardened version of the French word for "I", "je", but not as hard as the "g" in "get"]:  Romanian is a Latin-based language & there's plenty of help available on the Net, if they would but look for it!   But then, sadly, I doubt they actually care...  ).  Even the umpires get it wrong, too!  As for the Yanks' innate inability to shorten the "o" sound in names like "Djokovic" (at least our lot get that right...!), I give up...  

Am unfamiliar with JO's commentaries, so am in no position to comment.

I agree, Stircrazy - Sue Barker's pronunciation (and others) drives me mad /makes me laugh.

It even applies to their own team - Marion says she has given up telling everyone her name is Bartoli, Italian, accent on the penultimate syllable - like macaroni. She just knows she's fighting a losing battle and accepts it's Bartoli, like Barnaby.

And why are Lloyd and Castle calling the doubles player ' El - rich' when his name is ' Er - lich' ???

Mind you, does anyone know in Russian, how should the 'ova' names be pronounced?

Why do the commentators say Sharapova (emphasis on a long 'o') ? And yet say 'Kuznetsova' (emphasis on the 'net' and with no long 'o')?

If you go through all the 'ova' names, it seems to be random when they say it one way or the other..... I would have thought they'd be the same . . .

J&J break again for a *4-1 lead. So close...

Coup Droit wrote:

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Mind you, does anyone know in Russian, how should the 'ova' names be pronounced?

Why do the commentators say Sharapova (emphasis on a long 'o') ? And yet say 'Kuznetsova' (emphasis on the 'net' and with no long 'o')?

If you go through all the 'ova' names, it seems to be random when they say it one way or the other..... I would have thought they'd be the same . . .

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 I read years ago that it should be pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable, like Kuznetsova, but that when she moved to the USA the Americans kept pronouncing it with the long "o" and she decided just to accept it. In the same way, Bernard Tomic accepts the Ozzie pronunciation of Tomick instead of Tomitch.

They've done it. 

Huge well done to the pair of them. 

Only just realised I was posting in the Andy thread earlier. Oops! Oh well.