Subject: Voice-over Flubs

[Eli Polonsky]

> > From: Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org>
> CC: boston-radio-interest@lists.bostonradio.org
> To: Todd Glickman <radio88@radio88.net>
> Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:55:26 -0500
> Subject: Voice-over Flubs
> 
> Of course, sometimes it's the copy that's wrong and not 
> the talent.  There's a Medtronic funder running on WBUR 
> now that was clearly written by someone[1] who didn't 
> understand the difference between a slash (that's "/") 
> and a backslash ("\"). I've heard at least two different 
> people read this funder, and I have to believe that they
> wouldn't both have gotten it wrong, so the inevitable 
> conclusion is that the script has it wrong.

The script indeed says "backslash", as punctuation marks
that are to be read as words on the air are spelled out 
phonetically on the scripts. 

Apparently, the Medtronic website has an auto-redirect set
up so that if someone enters that URL as it is read on the
air, with a "backslash" (instead of a "slash"), it sends 
their browser to the correct page, which, after all that,
displays a URL with a "slash" even if the user entered a
"backslash". I just tried going to that web page as read,
and that's what happened.

I don't know whether Medtronic created that auto-redirect 
because the wording of their funder was incorrect, and 
rather than instruct all their affiliates to change it,
perhaps they decided to make the web page work that way.

Since the web page DOES work with a "backslash", even if
via an auto-redirect, that makes the copy as it's being 
currently read on the air to be correct regardless.

EP