SOT: Have the BBC given up subbing?

[Woody]

BBC News web site last might where the flow text meant 'place' but it
was written as 'plays'.

This is the second glaring spelling mistake I have noticed with 24
hours. Have the BBC given up subbing (i.e. sub-editing), is it just
laziness, or has the extensive use of speeling chuckers on mobile phones
obviated the need to learn to spell in plain English?

[Brian Gaff]

Yes well, Its not the only place I see this kind of thing. I don't think
spelling is much used these days, you could probably write most things as a
string of imogees anyway. It will all end up like instruction leaflets for
washing machines eventually.
Brian

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"Woody" <harro...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
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[Liz Tuddenham]

With my part-time sub-editor's hat on: shouldn't the title be "Has the
BBC given up subbing?"


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[Woody]

On Fri 11/11/2022 10:02, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
> Woody <harro...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>> BBC News web site last might where the flow text meant 'place' but it
>> was written as 'plays'.
>>
>> This is the second glaring spelling mistake I have noticed with 24
>> hours. Have the BBC given up subbing (i.e. sub-editing), is it just
>> laziness, or has the extensive use of speeling chuckers on mobile phones
>> obviated the need to learn to spell in plain English?
>
> With my part-time sub-editor's hat on: shouldn't the title be "Has the
> BBC given up subbing?"
>
>

Oops! Although arguably the BBC could be plural or singular could it not?

The other thing I saw was not actually a spelling mistake but one of
failure to understand what was written by the original author.

It said that the US inflation rate had gone up BY 8.y% rather than TO
8.y%. I suspect that if the author had written from 7.x% to 8.y% the
error would have not occurred.

[John Williamson]

Using speech to text software on a live feed?

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[NY]

"Woody" <harro...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message

news:tkl7g9$qrfk$1...@dont-email.me...

> The other thing I saw was not actually a spelling mistake but one of
> failure to understand what was written by the original author.
>
> It said that the US inflation rate had gone up BY 8.y% rather than TO
> 8.y%. I suspect that if the author had written from 7.x% to 8.y% the error
> would have not occurred.

Then you used to get statements like "Inflation has gone up by 1%". That is
meant to imply that it has increased (for example) from 1.5% to 2.5% which
is not a 1% increase but a much larger one (2.5-1.5)/1.5 = 67%. In recent
years the wording has changed to "by one percentage point" which tends to
imply the difference between the old and the new *without the division by
the old value*.

I've always wondered why newspapers never use the % sign, but instead always
use "per cent", "pc" or "p.c.". It seems to be common for all newspapers,
whether tabloid or broadsheet. Is there a style guide which says that
symbols such as % should not be used in body text, in the same way that
using digits (as opposed to their words) is deprecated for single-digit
numbers (ie "there were 3 cats" rather than "there were three cats"). You
even see it in headlines where space is at a premium, even though "%"
occupies less width than "pc".

The usage that really grates is "increased by half of one percent" rather
than "increased by nought point five percent". I've even heard "increased by
nought point five of one percent" ;-) That's in narration for news reports
on radio or TV.

[Roderick Stewart]

On Fri, 11 Nov 2022 10:50:32 -0000, "NY" <m...@privacy.invalid> wrote:

>I've always wondered why newspapers never use the % sign, but instead always
>use "per cent", "pc" or "p.c.".

Maybe they've discovered that UK pound signs don't always come out the
same on everybody's screen and consequently avoid symbols in general,
not realising that this doesn't apply to the % symbol because it is
standard ASCII and thus perfectly safe to use in any text?

Rod.

[Woody]

The two that annoy me are the use of 'two-time' or 'three-time' rather
than double or treble. Also the persistent use of 'for sure' rather then
certainly, commonly used by people who's first language is not English
and very prevalent in its use by F1 racing drivers - even Louis Hamilton
who is English for heaven's sake!

[NY]

"Woody" <harro...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message

news:tkljen$ruoc$1...@dont-email.me...

> The two that annoy me are the use of 'two-time' or 'three-time' rather
> than double or treble. Also the persistent use of 'for sure' rather then
> certainly, commonly used by people who's first language is not English and
> very prevalent in its use by F1 racing drivers - even Louis Hamilton who
> is English for heaven's sake!

Y'know, sort of, all of those, like, things really, really, literally annoy
me. ;-) They are all verbal padding for people who suffer from buffer
under-run because their brains can't keep up with their mouths.

[The Other John]

On Fri, 11 Nov 2022 13:50:12 +0000, NY wrote:

> Y'know, sort of, all of those, like, things really, really, literally
> annoy me. ;-) They are all verbal padding for people who suffer from
> buffer under-run because their brains can't keep up with their mouths.

Absolutely! :)

--
TOJ.

[Brian Gaff]

Well one of the problems today is that news on the web has to be up to date,
so quite often a reporter will write and sub their own copy, with no time in
between to forget the words they thought they had written,and hence they see
what they think they wrote, not what was or is there.
It happens a lot in small regional papers as well of cours.
When, a very long time ago I worked for Popular Computing Weekly, I had to
submit my copy for subbing and a lot of those who did this job knew sod all
about computing. Thus it was not unusual to find reserved words and syntax
in program listings in Basic had been corrected so they could not possibly
work. It took a long time to get these sub editors to actually stop doing
this. However when I worked for Micronet, things were a lot better as most
sub editors were also programmers or enthusiasts and knew about all this
stuff, so we seldom had an issue.

Brian

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"Woody" <harro...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message

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[MB]

I aways got the impression that the users of subtitles were just very
glad for the service and were prepared to accept the odd
mistranscriptions and spelling errors that are difficult to avoid on
live subtitling without a big increase in cost.

The BBC seem to take the service most seriously anyway.

[jon]

An istoric event.

[Paul Ratcliffe]

On Fri, 11 Nov 2022 09:15:48 +0000, Woody <harro...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> This is the second glaring spelling mistake I have noticed with 24 hours.

Did your sub-editor miss the with/within error then?

[NY]

"jon" <j...@nospam.cn> wrote in message news:tktne1$1pjf8$1...@dont-email.me...

Why *is* it that words like "historic" and "hotel" take "an" before them,
even though the "h" is sounded? Why "an historic event" but "a hedge"? The
normal rule of "'a' before a consonant or consonant sound; 'an' before a
vowel or vowel sound" seems to have an exception for *some* words which
begin with a sounded H.

Is it that the H was originally silent (so "an 'historic event" or "an
'otel") in these words which were borrowed from French, and then the H
started to be sounded but the article didn't change in sync from "an" to
"a".

I wonder if "an hotel" (as opposed to "an 'otel" or "a hotel") is gradually
becoming obsolete as older speakers gradually die out.

[Liz Tuddenham]

NY <m...@privacy.invalid> wrote:

[...]

> > An istoric event.
>
> Why *is* it that words like "historic" and "hotel" take "an" before them,

> even though the "h" is sounded? ...

>
> Is it that the H was originally silent (so "an 'historic event" or "an
> 'otel") in these words which were borrowed from French, and then the H
> started to be sounded but the article didn't change in sync from "an" to
> "a".

That is my understanding. The 'an' is correct but sounding the 'h' is
wrong.

[Robin]

On 15/11/2022 09:53, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
> NY <m...@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>
> [...]
>>> An istoric event.
>>
>> Why *is* it that words like "historic" and "hotel" take "an" before them,
>> even though the "h" is sounded? ...
>>
>> Is it that the H was originally silent (so "an 'historic event" or "an
>> 'otel") in these words which were borrowed from French, and then the H
>> started to be sounded but the article didn't change in sync from "an" to
>> "a".
>
> That is my understanding. The 'an' is correct but sounding the 'h' is
> wrong.
>

Meanwhile Fowler's seminal Modern English Usage had very many years ago:

"A is used before all consonants except silent h (a history, an
hour); an was formerly usual before an unaccented syllable beginning
with h (an historical work), but now that the h in such words is
pronounced the distinction has become pedantic, and a historical should
be said and written; similarly an humble is now meaningless and
undesirable."

and later on the word "hotel":

"The old-fashioned pronunciation with the h silent is certainly
doomed and is not worth fighting for."



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Robin
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[MB]

On 15/11/2022 10:49, Robin wrote:
> Meanwhile Fowler's seminal Modern English Usage had very many years ago:
>
> "A is used before all consonants except silent h (a history, an
> hour); an was formerly usual before an unaccented syllable beginning
> with h (an historical work), but now that the h in such words is
> pronounced the distinction has become pedantic, and a historical should
> be said and written; similarly an humble is now meaningless and
> undesirable."
>
> and later on the word "hotel":
>
> "The old-fashioned pronunciation with the h silent is certainly
> doomed and is not worth fighting for."

Weren't most of that type of rule supposed to be have been made up by
teachers when state run schools took over from lots of small 'schools'
with one teacher working at home. They had to find a way of persuading
people that they needing tutoring in 'proper' English like what they used.

[wrights...@f2s.com]

On Tuesday, 15 November 2022 at 09:36:13 UTC, NY wrote:

> Why *is* it that words like "historic" and "hotel" take "an" before them,
> even though the "h" is sounded? Why "an historic event" but "a hedge"? The
> normal rule of "'a' before a consonant or consonant sound; 'an' before a
> vowel or vowel sound" seems to have an exception for *some* words which
> begin with a sounded H.
>
> Is it that the H was originally silent (so "an 'historic event" or "an
> 'otel") in these words which were borrowed from French, and then the H
> started to be sounded but the article didn't change in sync from "an" to
> "a".
>
> I wonder if "an hotel" (as opposed to "an 'otel" or "a hotel") is gradually
> becoming obsolete as older speakers gradually die out.

Sounding the H in hotel (etc) is just ignorant.

Bill

[MB]

On 16/11/2022 04:16, wrights...@aol.com wrote:
> Sounding the H in hotel (etc) is just ignorant.

Or just a regional variation in English as happens roughly each side of
the Danelaw divide.

[The Other John]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 20:16:35 -0800, wrights...@aol.com wrote:

> Sounding the H in hotel (etc) is just ignorant.

Like the female news reader on BBC London who refers to the railway line
being built as 'haitch ess two', but then she is from Sarf Lunnon!

--
TOJ.

[MB]

On 16/11/2022 12:40, The Other John wrote:
> Like the female news reader on BBC London who refers to the railway line
> being built as 'haitch ess two', but then she is from Sarf Lunnon!

Perhaps you can enlighten us about your accent so we can mock it also.

[The Other John]

On Wed, 16 Nov 2022 15:29:07 +0000, MB wrote:

> Perhaps you can enlighten us about your accent so we can mock it also.

70+ years ago my headmaster said I had a 'Surrey A' and would need to
correct it if I wanted a good job. I didn't correct it and sitting in
this £1.5M mortgage paid house I don't think I did too badly! :)

--
TOJ.