Media Watch (or Listen)
I consider it my solemn duty to keep an eye (or in this case ear) on those areas of the media that are trivial and meaningless. I seem to recall that there are three ways that people take in info; visual, auditory, and one other way (can we learn by sense of smell?). Anyway, I'm a very auditory person. What is bugging me lately is the new style of announcer. There was a time, back in the dark ages of the last century, when the announcer was always some deep voiced American guy. You could picture him in his cardigan sweater getting ready to light his pipe while he cheerfully told you the show was "brought to you by..." and then a one minute commercial would start. Somewhere along the line they started to try different voice types, probably best illustrated by the Carl's Jr bored-out-of-my-mind voice. By the way, that voice coupled with all of the slop and chewing in their commercials has made me vow never to eat there again. I know I'm very petty about those kinds of things, but hey it's a free country. Now there is a new innovation. Every channel (and I don't have cable so I don't know what happens there) has some guy growling about everything. It used to just be the movie guy, but now he (or one of his clones) is everywhere -- even PBS! I bet there's a technical term for it, where the last word in a phrase ends in that guttural breathy sound. "Coming up (growl), the manatees (growl) will they survive (growl)?" Oh well, it's just the current fashion. They'll come up with something else, maybe the announcers talking after breathing helium, that could be fun.