BBC Gravy Train commuter. Oops, wrong chat room

I thought Jamie OHara was manager at Billericay.

I caught up with a recent spat in which a privately educated MP/Lord something-or-other had pulled Scott up for her pronunciation, leading her to passionately defend her London accent (fair enough) whilst also answering a series of questions that hadn't been asked at all (she is, it turns out, proud of what she overcame to succeed and what she has achieved. She feels folk ought not to let judgments on their class, accent, or appearance hold them back. Wise words and true, but totally irrelevant to the criticism of her elocution).

It struck me as the perfect, brainlessly undertaken modern disagreement.

Lord/MP something-or-other overlooked the obvious, actually significant issue with her performance (she talks meaningless nonsense at everyone's expense) to focus on an entirely insignificant issue (she drops her G's apparently).

Scott failed to recognise what was being criticised about her and what wasn't, seemingly adding as many layers of social, political and emotional misdirection as possible to her response when all she needed to say was 'Focus on what I am saying, not how I happen to say it'. Mind you, that's probably not in her best interests, actually.

Both positions were set out in detail by the BBC, who did nothing to suggest that either party might do better to focus on Scott's competency. Mind you, why would they feel any inclination to raise the level of discussion when there is so much in the original dead-end argument that is so up their street, and they have the bonus of building their 'news report' around reproducing the relevant Twitter posts? That counts as journalism now, by the way.

And yes, all this of course was undertaken on Twitter (or suchlike) where nobody looks anyone in the eyes as they speak about them, where the subtle, complex and nuanced nature of human conversation is quickly simplified to the point of meaninglessness, and where little of any real value whatsoever can be achieved.

Yeah, but you know what? On TV at such a prestigious, global event like the Olympics I want someone to refer to diving, not divin'. It isn't about how you are brought up and how you speak naturally, it's about verbal discipline and making an effort to communicate in a way that pleases all the audience.

I'm sure a lot of us put on a bit of a 'posh' voice in a work situation. Why can't she?

You do seem to miss my point. You can speak how the hell you like in real life, but like the Lord I want someone (who's on that BBC gravy train too) to put a bit of effort in her articulation if she is broadcasting to the nation.

And like I said earlier, I don't actually think what she says to be that much informative either.

I understood your point, and to be fair you made it a little better than Lord so-and-so did.

To me, I don't really mind how someone speaks in any walk of life, including if they don't change for work or being on the telly (within reason) if what they are saying makes sense and has value. Or a least, it isn't as important to me as it is to you.

I do wonder where accent meets elocution though. Scott's view was (apparently) that dropping her Gs was partly a feature of her accent. Not so sure about that myself. There are plenty of strong regional accents on tv and most don't seem to preclude decent pronunciation.

I've been called common-sounding on and off all my life (at least, when I wasn't in the company of my native friends and family in Croydon / South London), but also had my articulacy noted along the way. No reason you can't have both, and neither adds up to anything of value if you're talking nonsense!