Five Years a Writer

More and more these days, I understand less and less of what the people on television or radio are saying. It’s not that I cannot hear them. I hear the noise of their speech, but I cannot necessarily make out the words. I find myself railing at them, as if I were an old crone elocution teacher: Speak slowly — or maybe not slowly, but for goodness sake EN-UN-CIATE! I am not talking about accents here. I am talking about make the effort to pronounce the words to ensure that the listener can discern them and, thus, make out the meaning of what you’re saying. It is so frustrating to me that so many broadcasters and podcasters think that having a microphone is enough to transmit their message to me. No. They also need to speak clearly and make the effort, take the time, to translate the noise of their words into meaning for my ears via that microphone. I recently learned that it’s not just me. This 10-minute video on Vox’s YouTube channel explains that the problem of hard-to-hear on-air vo...