Have you heard the bizarre new announcements on SMRT trains recently? If you have, you’ll probably have noticed that the announcer is a Singaporean (many pronunciation features give her away) trying to speak with a posh lilt — and getting it spectacularly wrong.
Perhaps the most outlandish is her reading of the following:
Please \ mind the \ platform \ gap
This is not a recognizable intonation pattern in any accent of English. Perhaps SMRT should employ humans to do their voiceovers, not aliens?
Native speakers of English would probably say something more akin to:
Please mind the \ platform gap
Here’s one of a couple of letters which appeared several weeks ago in response to the ‘improved’ announcements:
(Straits Times Forum, 2 February 2008)
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