Season 1 · Episode 146

0146 – How To Say Acronyms, Dates, Numbers and Scores

Get A Better Broadcast, Podcast and Voice-Over Voice · Peter Stewart

May 25, 20216m 54s

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Show Notes

0146 – How To Say Acronyms, Dates, Numbers and Scores

Acronyms

Acronyms are sometimes spelt out and sometimes read as words. There is AEE union, the Association of Engineering Employee (“A-double-E”), but then again there is the teaching group “BECTU” (“BECK-too”) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is more commonly known as ‘AIDS’, the office of president is ‘POTUS’.

Dates

In most parts of the world, the format is day > month > year, but in the US it’s month > day > year, so the 5th of March 2021 becomes March 5th 2021. (There’s often the omission of the “of” too, you note.) And the year > month > day format is used in other countries such as Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hungary, Lithuania and Iran.[1]

In some countries and cultures you might say 2019 as “twenty-19”, in other countries it might be “2-thousand 19” or “2-thousand AND 19”.

If you haven’t been told specifically, and the script is recorded, then provided alternatives.

Numbers and phone numbers

First of all, as far as English-speaking countries go, in the US, saying “zero” is more common than in the UK where “oh” is how you say the ‘the number before one’.

And different countries have different ways to say phone numbers. Although “triple seven”, “seven seven seven”, “seven seventy-seven”, “double-seven seven” or “seven double-seven” may be a matter of personal taste (although a brand may prefer their number is said in a specific and constant style), the groupings of numbers may differ. So the number 07747123456 may be broken up into different smaller groups of digits depending on local practice. (“12 34 56” or “123 456” for example.)

Sports scores

Reading scores for a sport that you’re not familiar with? How do you say:

· In tennis: 15-0, or 2-4, 4-2

· The football/soccer score: 0-0[2]

· What about the results of a sailing regatta[3], cricket match, Australia Rules football, American Football, bowling, darts or a golf tournament? All have their peculiarities.[4]

[1] https://brilliantmaps.com/how-to-write-the-date-in-different-countries/

[2] https://www.clarkandmiller.com/football-vocabulary-how-to-say-football-scores-in-english/

[3] In sailing, the lowest score wins.

[4] https://www.sportingnews.com/us/other-sports/news/unusual-sports-scoring/u0zcmhx6mt6k1lc72yeithwbc and https://www.quora.com/Which-sport-has-the-most-unusual-scoring-system

Through these around-5-minute episodes, you can build your confidence and competence with advice on breathing and reading, inflection and projection, the roles played by better scripting and better sitting, mic techniques and voice care tips... with exercises and anecdotes from a career spent in TV and radio studios. If you're wondering about how to start a podcast, or have had one for a while - download every episode!

And as themes develop over the weeks (that is, they are not random topics day-by-day), this is a free, course to help you GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE.

Look out for more details of the book during 2021.

Contacts: https://linktr.ee/Peter_Stewart

Peter has been around voice and audio all his working life and has trained hundreds of broadcasters in all styles of radio from pop music stations such as Capital FM and BBC Radio 1 to Heart FM, the classical music station BBC Radio 3 and regional BBC stations. He’s trained news presenters on regional TV, the BBC News Channel and on flagship programmes such as the BBC’s Panorama. Other trainees have been music presenters, breakfast show hosts, travel news presenters and voice-over artists.

He has written a number of books on audio and video presentation and production (“Essential Radio Journalism”, “JournoLists”, two editions of “Essential Radio Skills” and three editions of “Broadcast Journalism”) and has written on voice and presentation skills in the BBC’s in-house newspaper “Ariel”.

Peter has presented hundreds of radio shows (you may have heard him on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, Virgin Radio or Kiss, as well as BBC regional radio) with formats as diverse as music-presentation, interview shows, ‘special’ programmes for elections and budgets, live outside broadcasts and commentaries and even the occasional sports, gardening and dedication programmes. He has read several thousand news bulletins, and hosted nearly 2,000 podcast episodes, and is a vocal image consultant advising in all aspects of voice and speech training for presenters on radio and TV, podcasts and YouTube, voiceovers and videocalls.

The podcast title refers to those who may wish to change their speaking voice in some way. It is not a suggestion that anyone should, or be pressured into needing to. We love accents and dialects, and are well aware that how we speak changes over time. The key is: is your voice successfully communicating your message, so it is being understood (and potentially being acted upon) by your target audience?

This podcast is London-based and examples are spoken in the RP (Received Pronunciation) / standard-English / BBC English pronunciation, although invariably applicable to other languages, accents and dialects.

Music credits:

"Bleeping Demo" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)