Some of us from my chorus did a thing a few years ago where there was an MC from the radio, smooth voice, career in communications, no problem. They'd spelled things phonetically so she could easily read them off the page without stumbling—like, don't write them twice because a person reading doesn't know the parentheses are coming until after they've read the thing that's not in parentheses, right? Just do it phonetically once and go. Which was great until she went to announce the next piece by composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, which because many or most Americans are unaccustomed to the old British pronunciation of that name they'd written as "Rafe," and she said "Raffay." /o\ (Would it have been better to write it as "Raif," or would she have pronounced that "Rayif"? I think the answer is, write things phonetically and go over the text with the speaker beforehand.)
no subject
Some of us from my chorus did a thing a few years ago where there was an MC from the radio, smooth voice, career in communications, no problem. They'd spelled things phonetically so she could easily read them off the page without stumbling—like, don't write them twice because a person reading doesn't know the parentheses are coming until after they've read the thing that's not in parentheses, right? Just do it phonetically once and go. Which was great until she went to announce the next piece by composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, which because many or most Americans are unaccustomed to the old British pronunciation of that name they'd written as "Rafe," and she said "Raffay." /o\ (Would it have been better to write it as "Raif," or would she have pronounced that "Rayif"? I think the answer is, write things phonetically and go over the text with the speaker beforehand.)