What the hell...?

But I'm from the South of Wales and I still can't understand most of you.

We're not all incomprehensible, y'know!

I was pretty annoyed by the subtitles on the film last night - and had a bit of trouble getting through to BBC Information at the end of it. But the girl I spoke to (who told me her name was Agnes) sounded as if she'd had the same complaint quite a few times already, and said that it was the director's decision. (It would be interesting to see the duty log to see how many people called about it..)

I reckon they ought to have shown it without subtitles in Scotland.

Anyway, some of the Scottish words were not even spelt properly on the subtitles.

But I think you need to realise some people have difficulty with different accents, its not like those in the south are exposed to Scottish accents every day, like we are up here, so they are bound to have a liitle difficulty in understanding them.

I used to have the same problem when I worked for BT too. Though I had the most difficutly with people from Newcastle upon Tyne.

Down the road from Glasgow, in East Kilbride there are some people with lovely accents I can understand perfectly.

I can kind of understand them putting subtitles because the West Cental Scotland accent is very strong and they use words most other Brits have never heard of! I live in Edinburgh, and occasionally I can't understand them! but most of the time I know.

But I do think that the subtitles shouldn't have been put on in Scotland. Looked a bit stupid!

by the way...
Sweet Sixteen was set in Greenock, not Glasgow.

Ridiculous - and only hours earlier on another forum I pointed out UK television didn't treat accents with such disrespect!

If people can't understand it they can select subtitles themselves!

Last night, a spokesman for the BBC in London said: 'I've just listened to a bit of it just now and you can't really hear what they're saying because it is filmed in a reportage kind of way.

'It is made for an international audience, so people in the US and Europe might not understand it.

'But your readers can't point the finger at the BBC - we're just showing the film.

'And it's certainly not the intention of the BBC to insult our Scottish viewers.'

Full article at the SCOTTISH Sunday Mail.

Absolutely incompetent handling of the situation by the PR office - they just come across as really arrogant. Sounds like they've put any idiot on because they assume nothing will go wrong on a Saturday night. For those who were offended by this, a few complaints may change their minds.

I wasn't offended. I never used to be able to watch Rab C Nesbit because I couldn't understand him.

Leave the Beeb alone!

I'm from the North East, yet when I came back from holiday in Japan recently I heard some Geordie blokes on the train coming back, and thought they were speaking in a foreign language before my brain tuned back into the accent....

Fact is though I find some Londoners hard to understand on the phone. When I ask them (politely) to repeat what they've said they tend to be the ones who get shirty with me, folks from other parts of the country are far more patient. It's usually when you're using those headsets that accents become mush to the ear in my experience.

[Going a little off topic]

Of all the airports I've travelled through in the world, the only announcements made in English that I can't understand are those made at Heathrow and Gatwick. God help any foreigner.