Russell_B
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There other factors in this intelligibility problem.
Over the last 40 or so years there has been a dialectical shift, and English is also now spoken by large portions of non native people, this being an influence on the dialect.
I have noticed, and this was the case this morning on R4, a tendency for academics to rush their speech, often to a point at which it is inarticulately spoken.
I refer to this, which is now ubiquitously so on R4 from announcers also, as 'slalem speech'.
This is because, as in the slalem in which often the skiers do not excurse the course properly, but go over the posts, the speakers do not fully enunciate all of the phonemes and sibilants of their words, they being omitted. They are also often using glottal stops and wrong inflexions and intonations. The result often is 'gabbling' rather than a clear expression of carefully constructed and pronounced sentences. This is quite separate from the use of regional accents, which may present another hurdle to intelligibility. Another problem is that of egotistical competitive bickering which seems rife, and can further serve to obscure the words spoken, and which may allow contributors to 'hide' their views by not being intelligible.
There was a few years ago on R3, a speech by a senior academic from the LSE, which sticks in my mind as an example of just how effective well expressed English can be. There was no trace of self importance and egotism in this lecturer's presentation.
The current zeitgeist is such that much of what I hear is also so offensive aesthetically, that I would rather not hear it.
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