The move towards a cashless society continues to gather pace. Not only does battery charging of vehicles herald the demise of making payment at service stations or entering their mini supermarkets. Self checkouts complete with contactless cards increase the tendency to carry no cash or currency but only plastic cards or a downloaded smartphone.
The German grocer Aldi has now launched a high-tech store which enables shoppers to walk out without even approaching a till. Aldi is Britain’s fifth largest supermarket with 920 shops and 38,000 employees.
The new technology enables shoppers to download an app to enter the store, collect items of choice and walk out of the shop. A receipt for their purchases automatically loaded onto the phone (augmented by tracking and CCTV) would be emailed to the customer after leaving the store. How long before the number of employees is drastically reduced? Shelf filling will be taken over by AI using Amazon technology.
Emma Raducanu has been rightly toasted as the best of British in winning the US Open tennis championship; not only for the brilliance of her tennis and smashing so many records in the process but also her exuberance, the joy shown on each of her ten wins but also for her charm and composure in her interviews. All of this was impressive for any 18 year old, taking into account that she had only recently completed her A levels (very successfully) and was without the supportive presence of her parents due to Covid restrictions.
Being born in Canada to a Chinese mother and Romanian father tempted someone ungenerous comments about her Britishness. She was overwhelmed by the letters of congratulation from H M The Queen and Marcus Rashford.
That she was able to broadcast to her millions of Chinese fans in fluent Mandarin (albeit with a Shenyang accent) is a credit to her intelligence, ambition and her motivating parents – as well as being enormously exciting for her agent at the staggering marketing potential.
Descriptions of her practice regime and resilience should make her a role model for all young people. Talking of accents there was much jumping to the defence of the impressive and knowledgeable broadcaster Alex Scott relating to her pronunciation during the BBC Olympics coverage. Lord (Digby) Jones tweeted “Enough! I can’t stand it any more! Alex Scott spoils a good presentational job with her very noticeable inability to pronounce her g’s. Competitors are NOT taking part in fencin, boxin, rowin, kayakin, weightliftin and swimmin”.
Alex responded “I’m from a working class family in East London and I am PROUD”. Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, seeing a bandwagon on which to jump tweeted “From a proud sarf Londoner to a proud East Londoner: well said..” Stephen Fry criticised misplaced snobbery’.
However the point was not about class, dialect or accent – the media is not today dominated by middle-class proper English’ voices but is awash with Brummies, Geordies, Scots, Welsh, Scousers and accents from every part of Britain.
Whilst language may be a living thing, developing and adapting, broadening and growing, it must remain a means of effective communication. Standard English is not about accent but is the means through which writers and speakers of the language can achieve maximum clarity and minimum confusion or irritation. Sloppy speech, with lazy grammar and lack of enunciation will label the speaker. Could of’ instead of could have’, pacifically’ in place of specifically’ or froo’ instead of through’ are likely to result in interviewees being regarded as not sharp enough’ unless their aim is limited to getting onto Big Brother, Love Island or Gogglebox or becoming a rapper or a footballer.
It does not do young people any favours by pretending that how we speak does not matter. Levelling up needs mastery of the mother tongue. It demands enunciation and pronunciation. Young people should appreciate that what can hold them back in interviews or at work is not accent or class but a failure to conquer basic grammar and diction in the face of invisible sound barriers.
Home / Business / BARRY SPEKER’S COMMENT
Barry Speker's Comment
The move towards a cashless society continues to gather pace. Not only does battery charging of vehicles herald the demise of making payment at service stations or entering their mini supermarkets. Self checkouts complete with contactless cards increase the tendency to carry no cash or currency but only plastic cards or a downloaded smartphone.
The German grocer Aldi has now launched a high-tech store which enables shoppers to walk out without even approaching a till. Aldi is Britain’s fifth largest supermarket with 920 shops and 38,000 employees.
The new technology enables shoppers to download an app to enter the store, collect items of choice and walk out of the shop. A receipt for their purchases automatically loaded onto the phone (augmented by tracking and CCTV) would be emailed to the customer after leaving the store. How long before the number of employees is drastically reduced? Shelf filling will be taken over by AI using Amazon technology.
Emma Raducanu has been rightly toasted as the best of British in winning the US Open tennis championship; not only for the brilliance of her tennis and smashing so many records in the process but also her exuberance, the joy shown on each of her ten wins but also for her charm and composure in her interviews. All of this was impressive for any 18 year old, taking into account that she had only recently completed her A levels (very successfully) and was without the supportive presence of her parents due to Covid restrictions.
Being born in Canada to a Chinese mother and Romanian father tempted someone ungenerous comments about her Britishness. She was overwhelmed by the letters of congratulation from H M The Queen and Marcus Rashford.
That she was able to broadcast to her millions of Chinese fans in fluent Mandarin (albeit with a Shenyang accent) is a credit to her intelligence, ambition and her motivating parents – as well as being enormously exciting for her agent at the staggering marketing potential.
Descriptions of her practice regime and resilience should make her a role model for all young people. Talking of accents there was much jumping to the defence of the impressive and knowledgeable broadcaster Alex Scott relating to her pronunciation during the BBC Olympics coverage. Lord (Digby) Jones tweeted “Enough! I can’t stand it any more! Alex Scott spoils a good presentational job with her very noticeable inability to pronounce her g’s. Competitors are NOT taking part in fencin, boxin, rowin, kayakin, weightliftin and swimmin”.
Alex responded “I’m from a working class family in East London and I am PROUD”. Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, seeing a bandwagon on which to jump tweeted “From a proud sarf Londoner to a proud East Londoner: well said..” Stephen Fry criticised misplaced snobbery’.
However the point was not about class, dialect or accent – the media is not today dominated by middle-class proper English’ voices but is awash with Brummies, Geordies, Scots, Welsh, Scousers and accents from every part of Britain.
Whilst language may be a living thing, developing and adapting, broadening and growing, it must remain a means of effective communication. Standard English is not about accent but is the means through which writers and speakers of the language can achieve maximum clarity and minimum confusion or irritation. Sloppy speech, with lazy grammar and lack of enunciation will label the speaker. Could of’ instead of could have’, pacifically’ in place of specifically’ or froo’ instead of through’ are likely to result in interviewees being regarded as not sharp enough’ unless their aim is limited to getting onto Big Brother, Love Island or Gogglebox or becoming a rapper or a footballer.
It does not do young people any favours by pretending that how we speak does not matter. Levelling up needs mastery of the mother tongue. It demands enunciation and pronunciation. Young people should appreciate that what can hold them back in interviews or at work is not accent or class but a failure to conquer basic grammar and diction in the face of invisible sound barriers.
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