Something of the night...?

[Elfin]

Frankly, I'm deeply unsettled by the way Michael Howard speaks. The accent he has - well, it just doesn't sit right with me at all. Do any of you "peepill" know what it's all about??

[bernardo]

I think he grew up in Wales

[jills]

he is majorly creepy. As we say in Scotland, 'he gives me the willies'.

[pinus]

Although MH was born in Wales, his father was Rumanian, and the family name was changed to Howard when they came to Britain. A few weeks ago I heard an item on Radio 4 about various people in public life with annoying speech habits: if I remember correctly, the linguistic expert said that the English way of pronouncing that final "L" was different from the Rumanian way. I think that it was the same programme that included Eddie Mair trying to pronounce "Bush" (as in George or garden) in the usual English way, rather than his native "Booosh"

[becks]

I'm with jills, it's not just in scotland they say that cos he gives me the willies too!!

[pinus]

I've never come across anyone to whom he *doesn't* give the willies!! And that includes lifelong Conservatives.

[Sam172]

I get creeped by him because I see a strange resemblance between him and Elliot Carver from the bond film Tomorrow Never Dies http://www.agent-jamesbond.de/Darsteller/schurken/images/pry ce,%20jonathan.jpg http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures /2004/02/19/1howard1.jpg

[pinus]

Surely it's the other way round [grin] It's the fact that Carver looks like Howard that make Carver so terrifying

[andy hughes]

I seem to be the odd one out here - i don't find any objection to the way Michael Howard speaks, only with the sentences that he utters when he does!

[saffstar]

I grew up in Wales too & I've never heard anyone pronounce an 'l' like that before bernardo! I'm glad I'm not the only one who's unnerved by this - it really makes me cringe, I find my self getting worked up waiting for the next, inevitable 'l' aaarrgh!!!

[Elfin]

Glad it's not just me then. Interesting about the possibility of it being a Romanian thing (or is it Romulan...). I find it's the pauses too, with the dead eyes - it reminds me of Yul Brynner in Westworld when he starts to malfunction... And the semi-smirk appears when he knows he has yet again got away without being detected as not of this world.

[TommyC]

Ahhh.. Westworld.. What a wonderful film that was..!! Yul Brynner should have been awarded medals, fame and fortune for choosing such a tongue-in-cheek part after his previous cowboy films and then doing so well with it.. Those dead eyes are as creepy today as they were in 1973. But as for Michael Howard, he's just a guy who tried too hard to speak Oxford English in order to fit in, and no one told him he'd overdone it. At least he tries to appear professional, unlike the rest of the cowboys in Westminster..!! :o)

[Quizmonster]

Aw come on, Tommy! Someone must have told him by now...even Thatcher had voice-coaching, as did Hague and even, one suspects, The Quiet Man!

One should not, of course, mock the afflicted, but neither my partner nor I can resist - every time we see the bloke on TV - concocting long l-filled nonsense sentences such as "The illogicality of the ill-advised illuminations was a lesson to be learned by us all." The words must, naturally, be spoken as he would speak them. Try it...it's good fun.

(Actually, what Howard is most 'professional' at in my view is bandwagon-jumping!)

[bernardo]

The way Michael Howard pronounces the letter L at the end of words or before consonants is the normal light L sound, as before vowels. It is the same light L sound which is used in most European languages for L in all positions - including Welsh and Romanian - so it is only the rest of English-speaking people who are the odd ones out.

[David H]

It's not Rumanian, he is from Llanelli in Wales, and though he has clearly worked very hard to iron out his natural Welsh accent, the combination of that and his standard English attempt just can't wipe out every trace totally. One or two local sounds can sometimes get strangled in the process, and this is the best known example of it.