THE TV weather presenter is summarising the forecast for the coming days. She gestures towards the graphic showing tightening isobars. The set is in a public place and muted, the presenter's words displayed in subtitles. Viewers are warned of unsettled conditions and to be wary of a "ghost" of wind. Is this just another amusing glitch in the transcription of speech to text? In fact, the failure of the speech recognition software to replicate correctly the word "gust" is a demonstration of a significant shift in the pronunciation of the English language.
Listening to the broadcast media, it is increasingly obvious that the traditional vowel sound in "gust" is being replaced by an "oo" sound: traffic reports warn motorists of delays at "joonctions", court proceedings are overseen by "joodges", and travellers fly off on their "soomer" holidays.
Other letter combinations are similarly being converted. The "ou" combination leads dancers to team up strictly in "cooples"; and the single "o" loses its long standing value in "mooney".
These changes are not the result of slovenly diction, nor do they occur in the speech of any particular social class or region. Nightly, we can hear MPs from diverse parts of of the country and from different parties carefully enunciate their praise or condemnation of "the Goovernment".
These observations are not intended as personal criticism of those who speak what might be termed "oospeek". What people say always has to be more important than the accent in which they express themselves. No one has the right to demand that others speak in a particular way – except that is exactly what is happening here.
So widely has the "oo" sound spread, that by default the robot workforce is being "taught" by programmers whose natural pronunciation is to render "u" as "oo". Hence the gust/ghost confusion; and as robots increase their presence in their interaction with humans, this change in vowel sound will become dominant. And, in order to communicate with them, the population at large will have to adopt the pronunciation they can respond to.
In some parts of the country residents will have a particularly urgent reason to alter their speech: they will have to make it clear that they live in "Doondee", "Doombarton", "Doomfermline", (or more locally) "Droomchapel. If they don't, they will never get that parcel they ordered.
It is to Edinburgh's credit, and shows a commendable awareness of the revision of the pronunciation of its name that will be required, that steps have already been taken to re-tune the citizens' accent. On international match days, the tannoy announcements on the trams have directions for supporters travelling to "Moorayfield".
The consequence of the inexorable spread of "oospeak", through the proliferation of robot interlocutors, is to bring about something that not even decades of BBC broadcasts have achieved: the creation of a common British accent throughout the kingdom.
Ian Hutcheson,
161 Beechwood Drive, Glasgow.
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