This continues to be a strange time in my disordered life. I’m still feeling the effects of finishing my great life project. There’s no reason I can’t start another great project, of course. Or several smaller ones. One must fill one’s time after all. Sedentary though I am by nature, my brain, I find, needs to be doing stuff. So I drag myself out of bed at 6:30 a.m. and (for the present) work on the art and science of book narration. I’m taking it in small steps, as Jordan Peterson recommends, laboring to overcome my technophobia through familiarization. And it’s working. I am getting more accustomed to it. For the present I’m just recording the instructional book I bought, to desensitize myself to the hardware and the software and the protocols. But I now begin to dimly envision myself actually recording one of my books. Or several. The Epsom books – I still think I’ll need to acquire an Irishman for the Erling series.
Here’s a thought of no importance whatever: It actually relates to narration – as narration is a branch of the broader field of voice acting and announcing. And I’m an old radio hand – best copy reader in my broadcast school class, worst recording engineer.
When I was but a wee tot, I used to hear announcers on the radio telling me that such and such a program was “brought to you by XXXXXX Company.”
And – this was before I knew how to read or spell – I heard the word “brought” as “brokt.” Once I did learn to spell, a few years later, I found that the word in fact did have a couple letters inside it that would work for the “k” sound, sort of – the “gh.” But I also learned that the “gh” wasn’t pronounced. The word was pronounced simply “brot.”
But recently, while watching a couple series on Amazon Prime (“Reacher” Season 3 and “The House of David,” since you ask) I heard the announcer saying that at least one of these programs was brought to me by… I forget what company. But I am certain she (it was a she) in fact pronounced the word “brokt.” So that the phrasing went “brok to you.”
The “gh” in “brought,” of course, is a residue of obsolete pronunciation. Whenever we find such strange, unused letters in an English word, they’re usually the shadow of a past genuine pronunciation. In olden times, the word was in fact pronounced something like “brokt.” Or “brocht.”
I wonder if that pronunciation by professional announcers (I am adamant that’s what they’re saying; I’m not just delusional) harkens unconsciously back to that antique English. Or maybe its just the way the human tongue naturally curls when set to the work of pronouncing those particular sounds.
I clearly remember ads on that same station (it was the Faribault, Minnesota station, specializing in Old Time [that means oompah] music, advertising Lockwood Auto Company. But I remember that I heard it as Lockwood “L-O” Company. That one, I’ll grant you, I got wrong. Made no sense at all, but when you’re a kid lots of things don’t make sense.
Related to this is variation due to regional and social class pronunciations. For example, take these two lines from the Christmas hymn “Silent Night”:
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing, “Alleluia”
In much of England, I suppose, there’s a perfect rhyme there, and maybe in parts of the US. But in the places where I’ve lived that is not a perfect rhyme.
When singing pre-20th century Christian music, I have also noticed that “joy” evidently was pronounced something like “jie” rather than to rhyme with “boy.”
The class system really was a big deal in Britain in past times, and I wonder if sometimes hymn writers of a “higher” social class included rhymes that were perfect in their circles, but that didn’t quite rhyme in “lower” classes.
A problem endemic in English, and one that bedevils every performance of Shakespeare.
This is interesting–so much so, in fact, that I’ve experimented with it, repeating “brought to you” several times myself, and asking others, also. My “research” indicates that it’s impossible to smoothly pronounce consecutive “t”s, so something must be dropped or added. Which is done depends on how the speaker pronounces the “o” in “brought.” If pronounced “ah,” the “k” sound is added–“brok to.” If “aw,” then the “t” is dropped–“braw’ to.”
Very good. I’m proud to have advanced linguistics in this small way.
I’m a bad philologist and dialectologist but this – and these – matters are fascinating! I remember all sorts of jokes about English spelling and pronunciation – e.g., How do you pronounce ‘ghoti’?: ‘fish’ as in ‘enough’, ‘women’, and ‘action’ – I see it even has its own Wikipedia article… I wonder in what order I learned that ‘ch’ pronunciation where modern English leaves the ‘gh’ silent?: I suspect maybe German analogues as a choir boy, then Robert Burns’ Scots, then Chaucer, then Old English – and finally Dutch analogues. I should – but have not paused to try to – see what Norwegian and (Old) Icelandic do…
Re. Dale Nelson’s comment: I’m practicing Handel’s Hallelujah chorus for Easter with Dutch singers and we’re all attempting British English Received Pronunciation – ‘ evah’ and not ‘ everr’ – I’m wondering yet again if there are recordings of The Messiah with attempted 18th-c. English pronunciation – I really should get checking for fun! I love those attempts at Elizabethan/Jacobean pronunciation, though I can’t evaluate them knowledgeably – like Red Bird’s Christmas album with “This is the record of John”.
Re. David’s comment: In schola we attempt to follow the rubrics and pronounce the Latin as if it were ‘classic’ Italian – notably, prolonging adjoining double consonants – so, somehow makes a “tt” long without anything in between – funnily I think I manage something very like this unconsciously when saying “brought to you” the “aw” way- !
Also: checking Wikipedia, now I want to know more about Uncle Markus!
If English spelling and pronunciation were rational, we’d put a thousand scholars (at least) out of work.