Monday 15 October 2018

Audible punctuation

I said I would say something about audible punctuation. This is it.

I like it when people put emphasis on the last letter of a word at the end of a sentence. The letters T and P are the most common, and usually denote a full stop. Not any old full stop, but one which is imbued with a challenge to find fault in the logic of an argument (as if!), or simply to add a certain finality to  a statement. A good example of this is when the old caretaker of Hogwarts sends the naughty children into the forest having told them what horrors await them, finishing with, "Nighty-nighT". It is more of a sound really.

Ps work well too. If you tell someone to 'shut up' in a quiet voice, it adds a good dollop of disdain to the command.

Ws, Ss and Ys are a bit less elegant, but used to great effect by stroppy teenagers, as in 'No-wer!' when refusing to carry out a perfectly reasonable request, or 'Ye-ser!' when agreeing to carry out a request which they view as unreasonable. The 'yes' version is usually delivered after the fifth or sixth request with no response, and enhances the almost tangible display of exasperation brilliantly.

I am sure you can think of plenty of other examples.

18 comments:

  1. Oh and by the way, this has nothing to do with Victor Borge.

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    1. I love the Victor Borge punctuation sketch, it's brillianT!
      (Love all Victor Borge, especially his Opera sketch!)
      Margaret P
      www.margaretpowling.com

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  2. Ha. I am old enough to know who you mean. Clever funny man. My pet hate is " Yeah yeah " Just yes will do. Fashion speak I call it, cos there will something else when that has worn off.

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  3. I love your beautiful language when it is pronounced the way BBC does it - and I melt for voices like Ian McKellen), but I also enjoy dialects (as in "Dalziel & Pascoe" for example).
    PS (both clearly pronounced here!): I sent a sms to your telephone number, but think that is an old one, Ye-SER!

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  4. Victor Borge was still on our TV sets when I was a kid, but I can't now for the life of me remember how he spoke!

    A quiet 'stop i𝐓' works wonders as well.

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    Replies
    1. Austrian accent and lots of piano playing.

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    2. You can see Victor Borge's sketched on You Tube (and I pronounce that Yew Tewbe, not Yoo Toob.)
      Margaret P

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  5. I often wondered where your nighty night came from. It always seems so not yoÙ Sorry, cant do bold for the Ų.

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  6. Never thought of that. I shall try it.

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    Replies
    1. I would have thought you tried it as a teacher.

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