0304 – Grammar Glue Part 2

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English - October 30, 2021 23:01 - 6 minutes - 4.01 MB - ★★★★ - 4 ratings
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Previous Episode: 0303 – 10 – Grammar Glue

Next Episode: 0305 – 11 – Positive Intonation About Positive Information

2021.10.31 – 0304 – Grammar Glue Part 2

or – and and or are often two sides of the same coin. “And” is often giving additional information, whereas “or” usually suggests options or alternatives are available.

In a simple ‘either/or’ phrase, the “or” is often subdued, to allow the basic options either side to be coloured. “You can have chicken or fish”.

But in a more complicated sentence, when there are two sets of options compared with two more you may want to highlight the “or” to be a ‘pivot point’ in the options. Remember our holidaying friends who are working out where to go? “So if you want to go to the museum now I will meet you there, or come with me to the shop and we will go to the museum together”.

of - “Some of the oil refineries in the Gulf have shut down ahead of the arrival of the hurricane.” [1]

Hopefully, with what you know so far, you lifted “oil refineries”, “Gulf”, “shut down”, and “hurricane”.

Now read this:

“Emergency services in southern American states are bracing themselves for winds of up to 80 miles an hour, as Hurricane Pete heads their way. Ships in the Gulf of Mexico are in particular danger. Some of the oil refineries in the Gulf have shut down ahead of the arrival of the hurricane.”

All I’ve done is added an extra two sentences to the start of the report, so some of what you previously highlighted as new information may now be old information, and so your intonation will change. If you lifted “Oil refineries”, “shut down” and “arrival”, but didn’t stress “hurricane” or “Gulf” (old information), well done.

Some people though will lift other ‘glue’ words instead, such as “in” and “of” as in “Some of the oil refineries in the Gulf have shut down ahead of the arrival of the hurricane”. The thinking seems to be ‘I’ve talked about the hurricane and the Gulf, so I cannot stress those words again. I know, I’ll stress the ‘in’ and the ‘of’!’

And sorry to say, after a while, the thought process is no longer necessary, because stressing prepositions becomes second nature. This is wrong.

[1] Adapted from https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/here-is-the-news-im-stressed-out-hk9sccfdgsb and https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/are-bbc-newsreaders-guilty-of-mispronunciation-xn3n8d0r8jj

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Contacts: https://linktr.ee/Peter_Stewart

Peter has been around voice and audio all his working life and has trained hundreds of broadcasters in all styles of radio from pop music stations such as Capital FM and BBC Radio 1 to Heart FM, the classical music station BBC Radio 3 and regional BBC stations. He’s trained news presenters on regional TV, the BBC News Channel and on flagship programmes such as the BBC’s Panorama. Other trainees have been music presenters, breakfast show hosts, travel news presenters and voice-over artists.

He has written a number of books on audio and video presentation and production (“Essential Radio Journalism”, “JournoLists”, two editions of “Essential Radio Skills” and three editions of “Broadcast Journalism”) and has written on voice and presentation skills in the BBC’s in-house newspaper “Ariel”.

Peter has presented hundreds of radio shows (you may have heard him on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, Virgin Radio or Kiss, as well as BBC regional radio) with formats as diverse as music-presentation, interview shows, ‘special’ programmes for elections and budgets, live outside broadcasts and commentaries and even the occasional sports, gardening and dedication programmes. He has read several thousand news bulletins, and hosted nearly 2,000 podcast episodes, and is a vocal image consultant advising in all aspects of voice and speech training for presenters on radio and TV, podcasts and YouTube, voiceovers and videocalls.

The podcast title refers to those who may wish to change their speaking voice in some way. It is not a suggestion that anyone should, or be pressured into needing to. We love accents and dialects, and are well aware that how we speak changes over time. The key is: is your voice successfully communicating your message, so it is being understood (and potentially being acted upon) by your target audience?

This podcast is London-based and examples are spoken in the RP (Received Pronunciation) / standard-English / BBC English pronunciation, although invariably applicable to other languages, accents and dialects.

Music credits:

"Bleeping Demo" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

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Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo