AFL and the massacre of the English language

 
Jocelyn McLennan Roar Pro

By , 8 Aug 2012 Jocelyn McLennan is a Roar Pro

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    Turn on any radio or television broadcast of AFL these days and you will witness a massacre. Not of the opposition team, but of the English language.

    Is it just me or is the Australian ‘strine’ and poor annunciation getting worse?

    While it is almost excusable, well understandable at least, for former players who become panellists, callers etc not to have a great annunciation grasp, is it excusable for professionally trained broadcasters and announcers to be so hap hazard?

    The letter “t” seems to have committed some great crime as has been banned from football society with its disappearance from “Carl’n, Freman’le and Sn Kilda”. The letter “d” must be as confused as the rest of us, going missing from Essn’n but showing up in Foody in place of its colleague the letter “t”.

    The after game interviews with players almost requires an interpreter with one Brisbane Lions player barely decipherable with his analysis commencing with the predictable first response of “yeah-nah” then launches into “was tougher in the secon arf but we got a lot more of the foody with some good han ballin an kickin.”

    As in the words of Pauline Hanson, please explain? Whilst I am no graduate of Oxford University, and I am sure people will pull me up on my written word, I do hope, in the future we do not require subtitles on the screen to understand our own country’s footballers.

    Then there is the piece de resistance as the showpiece for the great game of AFL, the Brownlow medal night. Immaculately groomed ladies, some wearing expensive dress-less evening straps, yes you read that right, accompanying their gentlemen football players to this evening of culture. Even the players themselves look quite dapper as the long sleeves and pants covers up an ever growing layer of ugly body graffiti.

    The event always has a Master of Ceremonies that is one of the nation’s finest broadcasters but this only serves to make the rest sound so poor. “ Round 3, Essn’n versus Carln’n”. It, at times, sounds like a sketch from Channel Ten’s ’80’s show Comedy Company featuring Col’n Carp’ner.

    Most clubs employ media trainers to ensure that the players understand how to present themselves well in a PR sense to the media, but perhaps they also need to work on the officials, commentators and past players as well.

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