Deryk Barker wrote:

>Actually I think it is fair to complain about the BBC getting it wrong,
>as they have always pridede themselves on getting it *right* - they always
>used to have a Pronunciation Unit (don't tell me it's gone the way of all
>flesh) and a friend once told me part of his "interview" for BBC Radio (he
>failed BTW) was to read aloud an announcement full of the names of foreign
>musicians.
>
>OTOH, I agree with you; my immediate response to anyone who gets pedantic
>about pronuncing foreign names is: "what is the capital of France?"

--or what is the capital of Russia?

Classical music stations [including college ones, such as the one at
Harvard] years ago used to make a point of requiring announcers to be
comfortable pronouncing names they were likely to encounter in a day's
work...there was a killer announcement WHRB cooked up in my undergraduate
days which managed to drop about seven languages into one opera cast...

I am told that linguistic fluency is now perceived as a "distancing" factor
between announcer and audience in some circles...with apologies to Brecht's
Verfremdung...which is ganz andres...

Oh, dear....

Joel