Why ABC Announcers Sound Like Luddites When They Read Out URLs

For a couple of years, I've been aware that ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) announcers sound very awkward when they read out URLs on the television. However, it hasn't been obvious to me why. Now I've worked it out.

The difference is in the placement of pauses between the components of the URL when the URL is read out. When technical people read out a URL, they read it out with the pauses before the dots, like this:

     WWW       DOT ABC       DOT NET       DOT AU

This style of pausing has arisen, I think, because to technical people, the URL components are perceived conceptually as suffixes. Each dot introduces a new suffix on its right side. Technical people bind each dot to the component on its right side because, conceptually, each dot introduces a supplementary suffix. Also, it makes sense to drop "DOT AU" from the end of a URL, but it doesn't make sense to drop "AU" because then there'd be a dot left over on the right hand side.

However, when ABC announcers read out URLs, they put the pauses after  the dots, like this:

     WWW DOT       ABC DOT      NET DOT     AU

To those steeped in internet culture, this sounds completely wrong.

I wonder if the ABC has a policy on reading out URLs, and whether this Luddite way of reading them out is actually written into ABC policy!

I propose that these two ways of reading our a URL be named suffix dot pronunciation (the internet technical way) and prefix dot pronunciation (the ABC Luddite way).

Ross Williams (ross@ross.net)
21 January 2002