Hard on the ear

IT seems to be increasingly the norm for RTÉ to allow its staff to reduce the pronounced English alphabet to just 24 letters. Hence, on Sunday afternoons, I am typically informed that golfer X has shot “a sevinny-two this aftinoon”.

Then there is the woman who instructs us each afternoon to “text yo ansah to awe-tee-ee” in order to win oodles of money.

We must not of course forget the hapless (though doubtless well-remunerated) soccer pundit who wouldn’t know a past-participle if it kicked him in the shin: “Look how the defender has came across, or Fernando would have went straight through” Just as RTÉ now protects us from the dangers of flash photography with copious advance warnings, could it not alert us similarly to broadcasts which have only a passing resemblance to the English language ?