I need to vent before I throw something at the TV...

[CaptainCallisto]

DS2 is just out of hospital (nothing major) and is snuggled into me while he watches a documentary about The Cold War. This is, in and of itself, not a problem. The problem is that the narrator cannot say nuclear. He says nucular and, this being an hour long special on the nuclear arms race, he's saying it a lot.

Why would you hire someone to narrate a documentary when they mispronounce a key word? Just why? My eye is twitching, but DS very much wanted to watch it together so I can't escape. Fellow pedants, give me strength!

I understand, something like that can make an otherwise interesting documentary unwatchable.

I once had to switch off a documentary about King George VI because the narrator referred to him constantly as George the 'sicth', rather than sixth.

In a similar vain, it bugs me when the Beast in The Chase can’t pronounce thousand properly He needs to say it multiple times in every episode.

@Namechangedforthistoday

In a similar vain, it bugs me when the Beast in The Chase can’t pronounce thousand properly He needs to say it multiple times in every episode.

Haha yes, and his high offer always seems to be "firty five fousand"

It’s annoying that professionals are making this sort of mistake. I recently bought an audio book of one of the Flashman novels; the actor paid to read it kept saying ‘game leg’ as if it were game meat or something instead of pronouncing it ‘gammy’. I’m sure Timothy West wouldn’t have done that.

Someone on the radio said Altrintcham the other day.

Nucular or newkiller for nuclear irritates me too.

I have a friend who always says nucular when he means nuclear.

Eventually (I know him very well) I pointed out how it is pronounced, and he said miserably that he knows, and every time he says it wrong he winces, but he simply is unable to get it right. He can say "new clear" if he puts in a gap, but not newclear without a gap, and of course he forgets to put in a gap when he's saying a single word.

This interested me, so I looked into it, and apparently it's caused by an actual speech impediment, nothing to do with ignorance; more like native speakers of some languages being quite unable to pronounce certain sounds. The "wcl" consonent combination is actually not possible for some people to say.

There are probably a fair few getting it wrong who are just uncaring, though.

@SugarCrash1

It’s annoying that professionals are making this sort of mistake. I recently bought an audio book of one of the Flashman novels; the actor paid to read it kept saying ‘game leg’ as if it were game meat or something instead of pronouncing it ‘gammy’. I’m sure Timothy West wouldn’t have done that.

Having a game leg is a real thing, just not spelt gammy. Both mean the same.

Reminds me of Benedict Cumberbatch trying to say penguins (Pengwings) while narrating a penguin documentary

I restrained myself and didn't mention that! Yes, very like. BC knew he was getting it wrong but knowing didn't help.

He managed it later during an interview, but had to concentrate so hard that I don't think he could have thought about anything else, like finishing a sentence coherently.

And in the same sort of vein: a surprisingly large number of BBC sports commentators talked about the atherletes at the Olympics.