Relatively Ignorant Blog

There is a turn of phrase that I hear quite a lot where someone begins their response to a question with “Yes no …”. When you listen closely or see it transcribed it looks bizarre but it is common enough to just flow off the tongue. I have caught myself saying it once or twice.

Sportspeople often say it; something like, “Yeah no I wasn’t on top of my game today.”

Methinks like the initial yes or yeah is uttered before the speaker has started thinking about what to say. Sportspeople are good at starting their answers to any questions with “Yeah definitely …” whatever the question. Recently I was surprised and relieved to hear the Australian fast bowler Brett Lee not begin his answer to a reporter’s question with the automatic words but instead respond articulately and intelligently.

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It used to be that primary selection criteria for on-air jobs in broadcasting were beauty of voice and quality of vocal production. That has not been so for quite some time and it’s getting worse.

There are some beautiful voices on air in Australia. John Laws is probably the most famous (and whatever you think of his opinions, the voice is magnificent). But there are some really bad ones that I have heard, especially on TV.

These TV ‘personalities’ are probably chosen on their looks, such as Sandra Sully. Her voice is quite devoid of beauty, although its huskiness might be considered sexy by some people. But her technique is horrible: she seems to be trying to speak at a low pitch to sound more serious (she is a newsreader) and her intonation is a poorly modulated monotone. Johanna Griggs’s intonation is just as unmusical.

Some people sound like they are damaging their voices. Every time I watch Spicks and Specks I wince at the sound of Myf Warhurst lacerating her larynx whenever she speaks. At least she doesn’t get asked to sing! Monica Trapaga sounds similar, and she did sing a lot on Playschool (and you could hear her start to lose her voice, not surprisingly).

Some voices are just plain ugly. Rob Palmer, who works on Better Homes and Gardens TV show, makes a hideous, rasping noise when he speaks (perhaps in imitation of some of his carpentry tools).

Doesn’t anyone else hear how bad these people sound?

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Aristotle Pagaltzis misses a feature from Firefox 1.0 that was removed from Firefox 1.5: the ability to right-click on a bookmarks folder and select Manage Folder to manage only that folder. I used to use it a lot, and also miss it.

Why did they take it away? It was buggy. Someone has written an extension to provide that functionality but I haven’t tried it.

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