Praise for BBC Weatherman after he apologises for ‘Caernarvon’ mistake
BBC weatherman Matt Taylor has been praised for apologising after the name “Caernarvon” appeared on-screen during a morning weather bulletin.
The error came to light during a BBC Breakfast bulletin as the Anglicised spelling of the place name appeared alongside Oban, Thirsk, Birmingham, Worcester and Benson.
Caernarfon is Wales’ most Welsh-speaking town and the subject of Anglicising place names has become a hot topic in the area, with some accusations that names are being changed to suit tourists.
Commenting on the error on Twitter, Craig Allman said he had an “anti-Welsh alert” to share.
“Image from BBC Breakfast this morning,” he said. “Is this just carelessness &/ or ignorance (sloppy & unprofessional), or a further wilful promotion of the Tory anti-Welsh agenda (sinister)?
“In case you can’t be bothered checking, it’s CAERNARFON!”
The message was ‘liked’ over 100 times, and re-tweeted 18 times.
Among those who responded were Matt Taylor himself.
“Hi Craig. That was completely my error. I had written it down on my sheet with an ‘f’ but obviously had a momentary lapse as I rushed to get the graphic together in time,” he said.
“Perhaps flashbacks to my childhood holidays there. All was quickly sorted. Thanks for getting in touch.”
Hi Craig. That was completely my error. I had written it down on my sheet with an ‘f’ but obviously had a momentary lapse as I rushed to get the graphic together in time. Perhaps flashbacks to my childhood holidays there. All was quickly sorted. Thanks for getting in touch
— Matt Taylor (@MetMattTaylor) November 5, 2021
Chris Snell asked, “So are you putting the graphics together or just giving the information to ‘tech whizz’ to do it for you?”
“We have to do it all ourselves – I’m a one man band in the morning,” the weatherman said in reply.
The weatherman’s apology was praised by others, with E Thomas saying that it was a “classy reply”.
“We all make mistakes, and takes guts to admit it,” he said.
Chris Snell said that he was “genuinely surprised (and impressed)” that weathermen and women put together the graphics themselves. “Explains why things like this happen then!”
The spelling of Caernarfon was changed to the correct one on subsequent weather reports.
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I live in Caernarvon, PA, USA and it was cold here but not that cold! Oh, we use Fahrenheit 🙂
Some people are so desperate to be offended 🙄
800 years of disrespect does that to people funnily enough.
I know right, make one little comment on a certain country’s past and present behaviours and 40 million people accuse you of being a racist.
All I want is Welsh placename’s not only to be spelt correctly but pronounced properly too. It’s not a lot to ask. Although credit goes to Scot Matt Taylor. At least he was aware of it No doubt the highly paid BBC researcher that did the weather graphics was a little slow regarding his or her Welsh geography. And it’s not about being “offended” just for the sake of it. Remember how the name Lloyd (Llwyd) has been butchered to the point that even Welsh speakers have given up pronouncing it correctly. I find anything with LL is now Lan… Read more »
Anybody can make a mistake. You’ve made a classic error in your post, having used an apostrophe where there shouldn’t be one.
Just one character out of place, exactly like the weatherman’s graphic.
There are several other errors too, but I just pointed out the first of them.
Easy to criticise, eh?
They don’t have assistants. They have to gather, analyse and present the information and graphics themselves.
Yawn – I prefer the English version. After all only about 3% actually speak the language. All this 25% is utter nonsense. They no doubt include my son as a welsh speaker who got an A* at GCSE and can’t speak or read a word a year later.
Utter waste of time and money ramming the language down peoples throats. If you want to speak it fine – crack on.
Not today, troll. And get your facts right.
“The message was ‘liked’ over 100 times, and re-tweeted 18 times”
Wow! Stop the presses as they used to say!