THE DIARY OF A GEEK IN OXFORDSHIRE


Solving the World's problems with common sense and a flamethrower.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

CBBC and the English Language

Dear CBBC


Let us, if we may, remind ourselves of the original remit of the British Broadcasting Corporation. To inform, to educate and to entertain, wasn't it?

Bearing that in mind, shall we just take a moment to familiarise ourselves with a little Sunday morning programme called 'The Pod'?

Please accept my gratitude for bringing this enormously erudite educational masterpiece to our screens. In this charming little Sunday morning show, the 'Dungeekin Minors' sat rapt, watching Pod educate my children on the correct use of 'Wasssup', 'no man', 'Braaa' and, gratifyingly, 'innit'.

Oh, and thank you SO much, CBBC, for providing my offspring with valuable instruction on the pronunciation of 'arks' in the sense of 'requesting information'.

While I don't expect our kids to be receiving instruction on theoretical physics, interspersed with Rachmaninov piano concertos, it's disconcerting to see white, middle class children attempting to speak 'gangsta'. Especially when the children concerned were quite clearly Home Counties.

Watching some beautifully-spoken young lady called Annabel throwing signs while saying, "Wassup - I'm gonna hang out wiv my bruvvas, innit" hardly informs, poorly educates and certainly doesn't qualify as entertainment.

So - and to do this in a language you should understand - make yer shows talk right, man, yeah? If I have to arks you again then me an my bruvvas will set you on fire, awright?

Innit.

Dungeekin

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ah The BBC