Well, I.C. asked James Brandon a question to clarify it, what he'd do if he met someone who..., and his reply was:IC appears to believe my position is untenable and intolerable, but I am not sure what he thinks my position is...
What was the ignorant I.C. to conclude? (To me “ape” doesn’t really sound complimentary and I suspect “PC” here may not be meant nicely, either. I’ll especially point out that even without making use of a plethora of smilies here, I'm not upset in any way, I’m just stating stuff.)To reply to I.C., I agree with your point 100% regarding the way that a PC BBC is trying to ape localized phonetics. This is precisely the point I was making: if you push this reasoning to its logical conclusion, it makes no sense, so you might as well desist
I'd expect of newsreaders they make an attempt to pronounce people's names correctly in the same way as I'd expect people make an honest try to pronounce the name of the person in front of them. My own name gets butchered all the time (though not on the news, of course), doesn't bother me. I don’t mind the name, but for me it’s just a tag, to myself I have none. But I know others who see that differently and in my opinion it isn’t so nice to give someone a different name without asking, which changing the pronunciation radically in my opinion does. On the other hand, I thought I noticed some people get slightly annoyed, take ill when they would have to make an effort to memorise an unusual name. More often than not I either mention my name and offer a different, adopted one instead or I’ll offer an adopted one straightaway. I’d rather avoid correcting. Also prevents not reacting when someone calls me a completely different name that I may not recognise. But I’ll try to get other people’s names right and it's interesting to see who after I’ve said “just call me X” still makes an effort to speak my given name – which is easy. My experience has been, those who care get it right, those who don’t do not.
Regarding place names, I would not expect newsreaders to pronounce foreign place names just as the locals do when this would neither fit into the flow of their speech (that might differ) nor be understood by their audience. I don’t expect they radically change names that have a strong history, like Munich or Cologne, say.
For those not yet firmly established place names which in their English versions can't be pronounced close to the local twang without turning them into tongue twisters, I would wish readers will try to settle for a comprise that takes local pronunciation into consideration. By "general disregard" I meant a practice that when forming a pronunciation for people's names (which I consider to be particularly touchy) or place names without a strong history wouldn't give a damn how those natives call that guy or thing.
Personally I also don't mind if traditional spellings or pronunciations are edged closer to local ones, but it may be useful not to do this all too radically.
If I were to give directions how to get to Quedlinburg, say, and an Anglophone didn’t have an ear for languages or I suspected a German pronunciation would make things harder for him, I’d anglicise the name to the point of total distortion if only that helps. Other circumstances, other guidelines.