Good lord, the quality of North American talk radio...
Dr James McGrath of Exploring Our Matrix recently discussed the Nye/Ham event on air with a blogger in the Ham camp - hosted by some Ontario smart arse. My Blogger spell-checker, which only knows American English, doesn't recognise the word arse, which is kind of sad. But then, as the smart arse in question, host Drew Marshall, (who seemed to do most of the yacking), pointed out in his introductory remarks, Americans pronounce McGrath as McGrath with the 'th' sound, whereas in the Queen's English it's McGrarr. Two peoples separated by a common language. For the record, brethren, an ass is a donkey.
Anyway this is, according to the PR, "Canada's Most Listened To Spiritual Talk Show." To which it's tempting to reply, God help the spiritual state of Canada. It wasn't really a discussion, let alone a debate... more a monologue with occasional interruptions permitted from the guests. You could listen in here, or simply hope James holds out next time for a spot on an NPR affiliate, where hopefully the host doesn't sound like he glugged seven cans of Red Bull before hitting the airwaves. Not that McGrath doesn't squeeze in one or two goodly points, but there's an awful lot of Motor-mouth Marshall's sludge to shovel through to get to them.
Which leaves me with only one burning question. Do Canadians know how to spell arse?
I'm Canadian, and of course we do. :)
ReplyDeleteI actually enjoyed being on the show, and it was supposed to be mostly light-hearted rather than serious. And so it may be that I rather than Drew Marshall was the one who was getting it wrong. Sorry you didn't enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed being on it!
ReplyDelete"Motor-mouth Marshall's"
ReplyDeleteAmerican English would tend to eliminate the space or hyphen as "motormouth" and "coordinate", though I see "Co-ordinate" in some pre-WWII US movie credits. Makes for a bit of a strange look with the double-o, but new rules are rules. How does Macquarie & NZ rule on this?
Languages evolve - dost thou knowest (or is it knoweth)? Ah, the "Queen"...that's what we're lacking in America...kings and queens and stuff. We prefer to support big corporations with our tax dollars.
ReplyDeleteI am Canadian and it's spelled "ass"...lol.
ReplyDelete