One of the announcers on a local classical music station is very knowledgeable about music (having been an announcer at a classical music radio station, I know how that works:   read the back of the record jacket), but he has a very grating approach to pronouncing the names of composers and their works. I don't think he speaks any language but English, and in that, he does quite well. But with any foreign-sounding name, which most of them are, he must really strain his mouth a lot. He is forever putting the em-PHAH-sis on the wrong syl-LAHB-le and, in general, tries his damnedest to sound like he knows how to pronounce, French, German, Italian, and Russian names when it's so obvious that he's clueless.

Give him a name like MacPherson and remind him that it's Scottish, and he might trill the "R" for about three seconds.

He's on right now, playing some really nice music, but when he announces it, I'm afraid I wince a lot, smack my forehead with the palm of my hand, and pop another Rolaid. The other announcers there do just fine. Jeez, I wish someone would take the guy in hand!

Don Firth