Notes for BBC reporters

After listening to you chaps on NPR lo these many years, I thought I might offer some feedback.

• You are using a microphone and a recording or transmitting device which is used to convey by electronic means the sounds of your voice worldwide to a local transmitter that carries it to my car radio, where I can turn the amplifier up sufficiently loud to cause permanent tinnitus. It is not necessary for you to try to do so by yourself and without the apparatus. Speak in a normal voice; we can hear you. It is not a tin can and a string.
• Try to break things up a little. I know consistency is nice and all, but in a 5 minute report, it is excruciating to hear every sentence pronounced, "DAdaDAdaDAdaDAdaDAdaDAdada-DAAAAaaaa. DAdaDAdaDAdaDAdaDAdaDAdada-DAAAAaaaa." It's like listening to that Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous reporter wax eloquent about nuclear prolifer-AAA-tion. It is reminiscent of the Monty Python episode that featured Whicker IIII[s]-land.
• Korea only has one "r" in it. Same for Africa. India has no "r" in it. Thus, we pronounce them ko-REE-a, Af-ree-ka, IN-dee-a, and not ko-Ree-er, A-free-ker, and IN-dee-er. Stop appending r's to every word that ends in a "ah"-sound (I'm sure pronunciologists have a name for it, but I shan't look it up). Last night, we were watching The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when the brave tots made several references to "gels". That's with a hard "g" as in "garage", so not at all like the stuff hardcore suburban punks put in their hair. My wife asked what they were saying, and I had by then deduced they were talking about "girls" but had somehow left out the "r". "No matter", I reassured her, "they'll likely find a spare at the end of Narnia".
  

As I look back now, I realize that "garage" was perhaps not the best example; I meant of course the first "g". Anyhow, ...

• "No" has a single syllable, at most two when a special emphasis is required. At no time does it have four or more. "No", or perhaps, "No-o", but not "NaOOoo", nor shall it be "NaOOOooUU", and higher order elaborations are right out. I have heard Australian correspondents turn "No, Sue" into iambic pentameter.

Otherwise, nice job, cheerio, keep it up, pip-pip, and all that.