My recent positive posts shouldn’t serve to overshadow my general state of annoyance at the way things are in Israel. Here’s another pet peeve:
Israeli pop-star Harel Moyal has had a song of his yanked by Israel’s state sponsored, commercial free music station, Galgalatz. Why? Galgalatz refuses to continue playing the song because Moyal “mispronounces” a single vowel. His pronunciation reflects the colloquial articulation, which vocalizes the initial vowel in מכיר as mekir, instead of the correct makir. Moyal will need to re-record the entire song as a result.
This instance is but a small illustration of an upsurge of the almost French-like pedantic punctiliousness among Israelis when it comes to the spelling, pronunciation, and accentation of the modern-Hebrew language. Did the FCC file an injunction to cease broadcast of System of a Down’s song “Lonely Day” because it contains the grammatically incorrect refrain “the most loneliest day of my life”? Should country music songs containing the contraction “ain’t” also be re-recorded?
Hebrew subtitling on Israel’s channels 1 and 2 will consistently correct the grammar of people being interviewed. It is a favored pastime of “talkbackistim,” i.e., people who leave comments on Israeli news websites, to point out either the bad grammar and/or spelling of other commenters (commentators?).
Linguistic pride is a wonderful virtue. A country that takes a recording artist to task for mispronouncing a single vowel should treat its leaders with the same level of accountability.
