On Sunday 03 Jun 2012 2:33:36 am Tim Bray wrote: > It’s awfully nice that in the British Isles, there’s still a vigorous > ecosystem of regional and class accents; and it pleases me that the > BBC lets non-RP-speakers on the air.
The BBC used to air English lessons on their shortwave channels in years gone by. I'm not sure how many Silklisters have spent hours listening to shortwave radio as I have done but there is an old joke about the BBC and those lessons. Will explain the punch-line after typing out the joke, which uses a sort of black-white stereotype that was common in one era. An Englishman, a missionary, was lost in the African jungle. He was part relieved - part terrified to meet a huge, black, bare chested man in a straw skirt carying a spear. The missioanry raises his hands in the air and appeals hopefully, saying, "I'm lost. Can you help me please?" He is amazed that the African tribal says in what sounds like almost perfect English "Of course sir hzzzzzzz wrrrrrr phweeeeeee follow me please." The greatly relieved Englishman follows the African and they strike up a conversation. The latter's English is perfect, except that it is punctuated by non-words like bzzzzz phweeee and whrrrrr that are interspersed randomly between perfect English words. A few hours later they reach civilization and the Englishman thanks the African and comments, "Your English is perfect. Where did you learn it? And pardon me for asking, but why do you make those sounds between words? It that your African mother-tongue?" The African replies, "No sir. Those are not sounds. They are English words as I heard them when I learned the language from the BBC's English lessons on my shortwave radio" (The joke ends here, you're supposed to laugh) The sounds phwee, whrrr etc are what any listener hears between other things on shortwave radio. I was told that random radio waves generate that noise from interstellar electromagnetic radiation, but in my day I was also told that the Russians and Chinese were generating radio noise to drown out the BBC and VoA. shiv
