Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 April 17

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April 17

How fast is radio news read?

I have been asked to write news reports for a local community radio station broadcasting in English. The editor asked me to deliver stories of about one and a half to two minutes length, but I have no idea how many words that would be. I create text, not spoken recordings. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:18, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Why not try listening to a few one- to two-minute reports and counting how many words long they tend to be? You could also try writing a few and reading them at a pace similar to what you hear on news radio to see how long they take. rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:20, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

That's probably the best idea, but see also BBC News - Formula 'secret of perfect voice' which reports research suggesting that "the ideal voice should utter no more than 164 words per minute and pause for 0.48 seconds between sentences. Sentences themselves should fall rather than rise in intonation".

I also found Journalists' Toolkit - Timing for a broadcast script which says that a "common estimate in broadcasting is 180 words per minute. News anchors read at about 150 to 175 words per minute". Alansplodge (talk) 12:36, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

And more... Broadcast Journalism: Techniques of Radio and Television News by Andrew Boyd (p. 182).

And finally... A comparative analysis of speech rate and perception in radio bulletins by EMMA RODERO: "Most authors addressing the medium of radio recommend a speech rate of between 160 and 180 words per minute (wpm). If this rate is considered, only one radio station, BBC, would be within the suitable limit". Alansplodge (talk) 12:45, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Alansplodge, all those great sources tell me that about 300 words per article would fit nicely within the 1:30 and 2:00 target range. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:21, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

I concur with the advice to read the copy aloud to determine how long it takes to read, as more difficult words (like foreign names) will cause the reader to slow down. StuRat (talk) 15:48, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

They shouldn't, because a competent (news)reader will ascertain the correct pronunciations beforehand and practice saying them until they can do so at the same tempo as the rest of the script. {The poster formerly knoen as 87.81.230.195} 90.217.249.244 (talk) 18:39, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Not always possible with breaking news: "And the just-released name of the terrorist is ... well ... let's just call him John Doe, shall we ?". StuRat (talk) 04:27, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

English Language: The use of Whom

Whom is used with a preposition when someone's name or identity remains unknown/unmentioned. But sometimes I'm not certain... Look at the sentence below.

"Vikings would eventually return to English shores to raid, however, led by new chiefs whom had had no part in past agreements made."

The people referred to in this sentence have not been given individual names, and their identities are not really known. They have been referred to as Chiefs, however, which is a common noun rather than a proper noun, and so, you could argue that they have been identified as chiefs. So am I right or wrong to use WHOM here? 84.211.184.66 (talk) 13:59, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

"whom" is wrong here. Traditionally who is used where it would be a subject and whom where it would be an object (in modern colloquial American English, though, "whom" is more or less gone, and "who" is often used in both situations.) It has nothing to do with the knowledge of their name. (Also, in your example it's not being used with a preposition.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:06, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Whom is an object pronoun. Consider the following table:

Subject pronoun	Object pronoun
I	me
he	him
she	her
they	them
who	whom

Just replace the who/whom with "they" or "them" and see which works "THEY" works, use "WHO", if "THEM" works, use "WHOM". Since "...they had had no parts in past agreements" works better than "them had had..." which sounds wrong, go with "Who".

--Jayron32 14:11, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. I'll try keep in mind your advice in the future. 84.211.184.66 (talk) 14:18, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

84.211.184.66 -- The simplest thing to do is to never use "whom" at all, except in rare cases when "who" would come directly after a preposition. ("To who am I speaking?" would sound odd.) AnonMoos (talk) 16:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

No, that doesn't work. The correct method is to use whom when you would use other object pronouns like "me", "them" or "him". Thus "I shot whom?" is the correct phrasing, even though "whom" doesn't follow a preposition. It's not that complicated; if people can figure out when to use "them" correctly, they can figure out how to use "whom" correctly. --Jayron32 18:13, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

That's the prescriptive point of view. The descriptive point of view is that "whom" is becoming obsolete in most contexts and is therefore best avoided. I like William Safire's rule: "Whenever 'whom' sounds correct, recast the sentence." --76.71.6.254 (talk) 19:28, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Jayron32 -- The "who except directly after a preposition" rule isn't fully "correct" according to some definitions, but it fits with the ordinary everyday speech habits of a large number of native speakers of English, and it's minimally acceptable in many contexts (not all, of course). Your "uncomplicated" rule can actually be rather complicated for people who are not experienced in grammatical analysis, since it involves a two-step process of mentally moving "who(m)" back to where it moved from, and then deciding whether or not in that hypothetical position it's part of a syntactic construction in which it is the object (i.e. object of a verb or of a preposition). By contrast, deciding between "they" and "them" is part of the ordinary common speech habits of all native speakers of quasi-standard English (unlike "who" vs. "whom"), and it only involves a one-step process -- figuring out whether "they"/"them" is a grammatical object in the place where it actually occurs (as opposed to in a different hypothetical position)... AnonMoos (talk) 22:04, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't require any grammatical analysis. My kids have correctly used the word "them" since about 4 years old. No one had to teach them. Whom is no more complex. It plays the same role as "them" or "him" does. It isn't all that hard. --Jayron32 03:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, the relative-clause stuff less obvious than ordinary usages of they/them, and I just got the "let him who" stuff straight today as a result of this conversation, so I think a case could be made that there's a little analysis involved. --Trovatore (talk) 04:15, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Jayron32 -- Syntactically-conditioned morphological alternations of this general type (and much more complex ones in some languages) are obviously clearly well within the capacity of humans to learn and use. However, in the particular situation of "who"/"whom" in English, it's one of only about six forms that inflect for (non-possessive) case, and it's the only one of those six which is not usually located inside the grammatical constructions which condition the case form alternation, but instead moves to the front of the sentence or clause. Therefore "who"/"whom" is isolated and unique in the English language, and it has been observed to be eroding in the common spoken English of many people for more than a century. Edward Sapir in his 1921 book Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech has a whole long discussion of this (go to Chapter 7 and scroll down, or search for "where the drift is taking us"). Sapir says "Had which, what, and that objective forms parallel to whom, the position of this last would be more secure", which is exactly the same point (i.e. that the alternation of "who"/"whom" is not actually well-supported by similar alternations in modern English). AnonMoos (talk) 21:20, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not actually in favor of substituting "who" where the traditional rules would prescribe "whom", but I do prefer it to using "whom" incorrectly, which seems to be quite common these days. I had a disagreement with an otherwise well-written Wikipedian who insisted that "whomever" was always correct and "whoever" was just wrong and specifically, an American error. My sister teaches English, and reports that her students are sometimes quite shocked when she explains to them that "whom" is "not just the fancy version of 'who'". --Trovatore (talk) 23:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

This is another example of how different uses are appropriate in different registers. In a high register (one with a high degree of formality), one would say "Whom did I see?" since "whom" plays the role of object of the verb. But if one says that in casual conversation, one would probably be smirked at; "Who did I see?" is correct in the unwritten rules that govern that context. Loraof (talk) 19:46, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

The hardest thing to get straight about who(m), and especially who(m)ever, is what to do when it introduces a relative clause. Take a sentence like Who(m)ever the voters choose will serve as mayor or We will oppose who(m)ever dares to encroach on our rights. In the first sentence, the object of the relative clause is the subject of the sentence, and in the second, the situation is reversed.

The answer is that you go by the function the word takes inside the clause, not in the sentence as a whole. So Whomever the voters choose will serve as mayor, but We will oppose whoever dares to encroach on our rights.

The way to remember it is to notice that the subject/object of the sentence as a whole is not the who(m) word by itself, but rather the clause as a whole. Therefore you go by the function within the clause, where the who(m) word is directly the subject or object by itself. --Trovatore (talk) 20:41, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

 

To put it in the context of the original question, ... led by new chiefs who had had no part ..., but ... led by new chiefs whom the Vikings' enemies had not yet killed. --Trovatore (talk) 20:50, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

So is it formally correct to say "them that the voters choose will serve as mayors"? (just asking) Dbfirs 21:25, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, at least I think it's the correct use of grammatical case. The sentence might have other problems; I'm not instantly seeing what they are, but I don't recommend that anyone write it in a dissertation submitted for a doctoral degree. --Trovatore (talk) 21:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

On second thought, I'm not sure. Does the relative clause start with them that, or does it just start with that, and modify the pronoun? In the latter case it should probably be they. This is a tricky one. I'm also not sure about "let he/him that is without sin throw the first stone". If you use the same analysis as for who(m), it should be "let he", but that sounds odd to me. --Trovatore (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Dbfirs -- In that use, "them" is a non-standard alternative for "those", as in "There's gold in them thar hills" (a phrase which I vaguely seem to remember occurring in a number of old western films and/or TV shows in my childhood). It doesn't have anything to do with being a grammatical object, as far as I can see... AnonMoos (talk) 22:14, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

P.S. See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Citations:them#Determiner ... AnonMoos (talk) 22:19, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh lord -- Wiktionary even has an entry for "them thar" -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/them_thar ... AnonMoos (talk) 22:24, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, but the question is, could you write They that the voters choose ...? I'm leaning to the idea that "they" is actually correct here, on the grounds that the relative clause is the bit starting with "that", and "they" is the subject of "will serve" and not part of the clause at all. Similarly for "let him who is without sin" — the relative clause is "who is without sin", subjective case, but "him" is the object of "let", objective case. --Trovatore (talk) 22:21, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Trovatore -- in "He who laughs last laughs best" type constructions, I think the usual rule is that the pronoun takes its case from its status in the main clause, while the relativizer takes its case from its status in the subordinate clause (if applicable). To me, "They that the voters choose" is a stylistically awkward way of saying "Those whom the voters choose", while "Them that the voters choose" doesn't make any sense to me except with non-standard determiner "them" -- as in the quasi-proverb "Them that works eats". AnonMoos (talk)`

Yes, that sounds right. --Trovatore (talk) 22:34, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

In very informal BrE that sentence would conventionally be "Them what the voters choose." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.217.249.244 (talk) 14:45, 18 April 2017 (UTC)