Re: [ARSCLIST] Edward R. Murrow "Hear It Now", etc.

[Don Tait <Dontaitchicago@xxxxxxx>]

  The discussion on this thread about the effect of broadcasting on American 
speech and the speed with which radio announcers would speak "live" is very 
interesting to me because I am both a collector fascinated by speech patterns 
and am a radio announcer who does "live" work and knows what goes into it. 
Perhaps it's off-topic, but since recordings preserve these things, perhaps it 
isn't.

  I have read (sorry, I can't remember where) that when the first radio 
networks of sorts were begun in the 1920s, it was decided after discussion that the 
"accent" to be used would be a Midwestern one. It was thought to be the 
freeest of regional stresses (the South, New England, New York, et cetera). When 
networks became national, that came to apply to all American broadcasting and 
was adopted by all of the networks.

  As for speaking slower or faster when credits and so on are being read 
live, that's something an announcer must learn to do. It's a matter of knowing 
what one has to say and watching the clock as it ticks away the seconds to the 
time that one has to be finished. Those times are finite, especially in network 
broadcasting. It requires thinking about what one is saying, has left to say, 
and simultaneously concentrating on getting it finished on time. So one can 
speak slower or faster depending upon the situation (sometimes a crisis).

  None of this necessarily has to do with recordings of announcements from 
the '30s, '40s or later if they might have been electronically sped up or slowed 
down. And would that have been possible in the '30s, '40s, or even '50s? 
Genuinely live is another matter.

  Don Tait