The 'Obama Times'

Imagine me as a radio news reader, a news tale before me on paper, complex words in teensy-weensy print for the Obama Times.

Create mentally a picture of my Facebook friend whom I have never met and who owns the Obama Times, turning over pages where I should read, since I seem to use so much effort in reading the long sentences. Then I stumbled on the word Tsvangirai and pronounced it like I have heard it on the news chang-girr-IGH (-ch as in church; -ng-g as in finger; -irr as in mirror; -igh as in high). The pronunciation of this word has stirred up public and media interest, inside and outside the BBC, because of different opinions of how the Shona -tsv cluster should be pronounced in English.

Then I awake.

I send a text message to my friends about the dream, and one of them responds, 'Maybe there is something to the dream. Email your Facebook friend about it and see.'

However, after flipping my mind through my dream, I realised that dreams can be a sham.

There should have been a teleprompter so that I would not need to look down at the print. At least a teleprompter would have helped me appear to have memorised the speech and so speak spontaneously, smoothly, without any hesitation or mistakes.

It should have been a simple, brief and easy-to-read news report with short sentences that could easily be read with a single breath.

The font should have been average-sized sized and the words written in the present tense since it was broadcast news. This would give the report more of an "action" feel and add more drama.

Names should have been in phonetic spelling so that they are pronounced correctly. For example, pronunciation would be pruh-nun-si-AY-shuhn.

There was nothing to this dream. Besides, I am sure there is no media outlet called the Obama Times.

Comments

Princess said…
Eh! But there was a lot to your analysis of the dream! :D
eddsla said…
obama times! that would be avery good idea. am going to talk to my buddy Obama about it.

i love yo blog

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