Last year’s Icelandic volcano eruption resulted in long term and wide spread disruption to broadcasts and reporting across Europe as presenters struggled to cope with the news. According to volcanologists this phenomenon was caused by the abrasive nature of the name of the offending volcano; Eyjafjallajökull. “These uniquely harsh combinations of component syllables can get stuck as they’re ejected from a presenter’s mouth, coating the vocal chords and rendering them temporarily inoperative. This can result in stuttering, mumbling and in more extreme cases a complete loss of words. In such circumstances the news can only be restarted safely by substituting an impromptu, made up approximation.”
Over the last few days shares in broadcasting companies have once again tumbled as news of yet another Icelandic eruption emerges and investors fear a return to last year’s pronunciation chaos. Scientists, however, are keen to point out the differences that may make these fears unfounded; “The underlying name structure of the latest volcano to erupt; Grímsvötn is significantly different to that of Eyjafjallajökull. The syllables are simpler and larger meaning that they will fall out of a news reporter’s mouth much more quickly. We’re simply not expecting the same scale of invented names that we had with Eyjafjallajökull where presenters often had to resort to a bad Bruce Forsyth impression in order to get on with the rest of the news.”
