Lend me a Tenor (And I Don't Mean Robert Merrill, Stupid!)

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to people not doing their jobs?

RADIO ANNOUNCERS!

Their job merely requires them to announce stuff during radio broadcasts. That’s all. No brain surgery. No cancer research. No giving birth to triplets. Just clearly and audibly reading copy that someone else has written — in addition to correctly pronouncing words during some light conversational segments. Nothing could be easier.

And they get paid for announcing stuff, too!

For some reason, though, today’s radio announcers keep trying to make their easy job easier by refusing to do even the simplest things.

Too many announcers nowadays don’t even read through their copy before going on the air. Why? They really should take the time to do that. If they did, there might be fewer on-air mistakes.

Now, of course, if announcers are suddenly and unexpectedly given breaking news on-air, mistakes are understandable. Of course, in the excitement or stress of the moment, announcers can and do screw up. But if a big part of the job description requires audibility and correct pronunciation — especially correct regional pronunciation — they really should meet the basic requirements.

By that, I mean do whatever it takes to do a good job and to keep your job. Get a “Dictionary of American Pronunciation.” (or AP) Then read. Read before the broadcast begins. Then read some more.

More importantly, if listeners call in to offer you corrections, thank them for their interest and learn from them. The listening audiences are relying on you for correct information. They want you to succeed; they want you to give them reliable, accurate information. So do it and accept their input without vilifying them.

Do it without kvetching or ridiculing them or dismissing them as cranky old farts with nothing better to do. (After all, they ARE listening to you, and they keep listening — even when you make mistakes.)

The other day when wrestling legend and native son Verne Gagne passed away, an announcer mispronounced his last name. She said (GAG knee), not (GON yea). That’s understandable because a former shortstop for the Minnesota Twins also had the same last name, same spelling, but with the pronunciation (GAG knee).

And yet, when any famous person dies, CORRECTLY PRONOUNCING the name of the deceased becomes a reasonable and mandatory expectation. So when it didn’t happen with Verne, callers started phoning in.

The announcer who screwed up could only give an I KNOW, I KNOW retort and tell listeners to stop calling the station. Sorry, Sunshine, if you would have been doing your job in the first place, you wouldn’t have been bombarded with so many corrective reminders.

Maybe in the grand scheme of things, mispronouncing a dead wrestler’s name is no big deal. But it’s the principle of the thing. It’s about professionalism: giving your listeners audible, accurate, properly pronounced info over the radio.

If you want to get monetary about it, though, here’s another reason.

Last year a college kid who was a contestant on “Wheel of Fortune” lost a million dollars because he gave an unacceptable answer to the puzzle. Oh, he knew the answer, he solved the puzzle. The judges just considered his pronunciation incorrect. No kidding. They wouldn’t accept his pronunciation of the Greek Warrior Achilles. He pronounced it (AK a leez), but the judges wanted to hear (a KILL eez).

“Don’t sweat the small stuff” doesn’t cut it when the small stuff amounts to a cool million.

For all we know, that contestant might have heard the losing pronunciation from his local radio announcer.

People listen and learn from the radio more than you’d ever realize. They also remember what they’ve heard. That’s why giving listeners accurate information is so important.

Truth-in-broadcasting is so important to me that even I had to phone in a corrective reminder to my local classical music station. That’s right. One hectic Monday morning not long ago, I joined the ranks of cranky old farts. The radio announcer made a mistake that might have proven costly for listeners later on, especially on the game show circuit.

On “Jeopardy” or “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” this trivial tidbit of misinformation wouldn’t have been so trivial. Ironically, the inaccurate info broadcast on this classical music station involved classical music — specifically, from Bizet’s opera “Carmen.”

Even if you hate opera, you know this music. There’s no way you could have missed it because it’s gotten way too ubiquitous in our culture. Bizet’s “Toreador Song” has been repeatedly used in commercials to sell everything from cars to candy bars to laundry detergents. It’s even found its way into film soundtracks. To this day, whenever the “Toreador Song” is played, someone will inevitably quip, “Bad News Bears!” Bizet’s music has gotten so overused that now his arias are starting to feel more like cliches and less like breathtaking music.

So imagine my stunned enchantment when I turned on the radio and heard the “Toreador Song” sung in the way the composer had intended.

Just as I was heading out the door, KSJN-FM played an iconic recording of this aria being sung to perfection by Robert Merrill. Such perfect clarity and diction. Such sonorous tones rendered with effortless lightness and agility. You could almost SEE bullfighter Escamillo — as that era’s rock star from old Granada — swaggering into Lillas Pastia’s Tavern to regale his fans. Ah, the joys and dangers of a dashing matador, brought to life by the late, great, incomparable Baritone.

But the radio announcer didn’t know that. He actually said Robert Merrill was a Tenor. A Tenor! Come on! Like, Magic Johnson was an award-winning lacrosse player? If a sports announcer had identified Joe Namath as a famous basketball great who once played for the NY Knicks, ESPN would have suspended him on the spot. If you want to be an announcer at a classical music station, you’d better know your classical music. This guy didn’t. So I called him on it.

After all, if some listener had believed this error was true, then had gone to some game show…bye, bye, cash prize.

And suppose you knew your boss was a big opera lover. What would he think if you mentioned your admiration for TENOR Robert Merrill? He’d think you were a sycophantic weasel sucking up to the higher-ups.

So in the spirit of dispensing accurate info, I called the clueless ones at the radio station to let them know.

Of course, they didn’t care.

Too bad they couldn’t have heard about it from Bizet — or Robert Merrill —- that morning.