What irks, what delights
For the past 20 years or so, I have listened to a lot of podcasts. Probably 2-3 hours a day, at least. Likewise with audiobooks. I have accumulated several hundred of them, mostly on Audible.
One consequence of this, and of being a linguist, is that I have become highly sensitive to voices, to pronunciation, to words and to turns of phrase.
In general I am blessed with the tendency to disregard things that irk me and to focus on things that I enjoy, which are legion. Not everybody in our empty nest household has that tendency.
Nevertheless, I do get irked. I'm not a Zen master. For instance, there is a certain podcast host whose tone and chuckles are smug, whose bias annoys me, and who too often says "of course...". There is another one, deeply expert in his field, who has a nasal voice and who uses "look" and "now look" far too often for my liking.
There's an Irish economist who is very knowledgeable and witty, but boy oh boy, is he ever a know-it-all smarty pants. Even so, he reliably makes a total pig's ear of most foreign words and names, which gets right up my nose.
Nevertheless I listen to these podcasters at least once a week. Their podcasts are interesting.
Then there are the advertisements in podcasts. There's one that comes up regularly in one of my favourite podcasts. I don't mind most of the advert, but I really don't like the breathy tone that the woman adopts on the word "expansive" when she says ""an expansive portfolio of logistics real estate". I try to skip that bit.
On the other hand there is an ad for Shopify that I love: the woman's bright yet husky tone of voice, her delivery, the script, the background music, the way she says "ready t'launch y'business?" and "entrepreneur". For some reason, it all delights me. Sometimes I rewind and listen to it again. And again. Even though there is next to zero chance that I will ever become a client of Shopify.
That's three irks and two delights. So I will finish with a bittersweet delight. The creator of the podcast “Ukraine : The Latest” was taken too young by a sudden cardiac arrea two years ago. Since then, at the end of each episode, his colleagues play his sign-off: "My name is David Knowles. Thank you ALL for listening." It never gets old. It brings a tear to my eye every time.