It is ih-RAHK ......... not EYE-rak

What's wrong with people?

No matter what side of the issue one is on, one really ought to know how to pronounce the country's name ....... no?

:sarcasm:

:D:hi:

EYE :headbang: RAHK !

and I could swear I'd heard him pronounce it "ee-rahn" before.
I sometimes wonder if spokespeople intentionally mispronounce
countries' names as an added slight.

That's the way the knuckle draggers and war supporters all pronounce it. Since she's talking about bombing Iran, why not show that the team is as ignorant as the people to whom they're trying to appeal?

How soon until we get bushisms coming from them?

The fact is, Wolfson is way too smart not to know how to pronounce it properly.

Which frankly scared me.

:toast:

:toast:

:rofl:

and while we're at it... it's SOW-nuh, not sonna.

We'll all practice our pronunciation at the briefings to pick the target coordinates....

A visiting Iraqi student gave a talk at my school. It wasn't so hard to learn how to pronounce the name correctly.

It isn't hard to do or learn. But so many people say it wrong, that it is easy to forget the proper pronunciation.

"Pah-kis-stawn" is another one. I hate hearing "Pack-is-stan." I guess it applies to just about any of the -stans.

A friend who studied Russian said said it is "Mos-co", not "Mos-cow". It bothers me to hear "Mos-cow" now.

so I've always said Mos-coe...after all my friend's name is derived from the city Moscow.

and a whole lot of other things incorrectly as well. He should be stripped of his citizenship for mangling the English language!

It's ih-talian not EYE-talian.

OK?

Deutschland, not Germany, Polska, not Poland, Nippon, not Japan.

While we're at it, I hope you are pronouncing our American place names correctly: Los ANheeLees (Los Angeles), Duhtwoi (Detroit), and so on. Make sure you get the proper amount of French pucker when you say that last one.

It's time to draw a line in the sand and end these egregious mispronunciations!

Mayor Yorty of LA used to pronounce his city's name with a hard G. "Loss Ang Ga Leez" he'd say.

not fraaance.

WRONG!

That's what it sounds like to me when iraqis say the name of their country. It's just four letters, why is it so hard to say right?

people of good will understand that pronunciation is something that most people can't learn after a certain age and they grow up and move on as long as everyone understands what is being said

you would never correct someone's pronunciation IRL unless it was a situation where they wanted you to (exchange student, foreign friend who has BEGGED you on multiple occasions to help her learn correct language and so on) -- yet we focus on this nonsense on the net

as long as everyone understands what country is being discussed, what is the issue here? time wasting, that's what

A lot of people can learn different languages, and proper pronunciation "after a certain age".

I've corredctd people, so others wouldn't laugh at them.

The issue here is RESPECT.

i don't think it much matters, you are not speaking arabic or whatever, and your pronunciation is wrong no matter how right you think it is

the point of communication is to communicate, and people who have to use/speak multiple languages quickly learn that you can't be nitty about pronunciation, if everybody knows what's meant then it's cool


it annoys me to no end when ignorant fuckwits inform me that i live in "nawlins," no, i don't, and nobody except people who have watched too much teevee say "nawlins" but what do you do? those people are so convinced they are better than the fuckwits who say "new orleenz," guess what, they are actually worse, because they are not only wrong but they think they're right! (clue, the city name new orleans correctly pronounced has four syllables -- well, closer to three and a half syllables -- and neither nawlins or new orleenz qualify)

Also there's Lebanon Tennessee (Leh b' nun) and Palestine Texas (Pal eh steen).

Lafayette County (pronounced luh-FAY-ette), Nevada County (nuh-VAY-duh), towns called Prague (PRAY-g), El Dorado (el-dor-RAY-doh), etc.

And I defy anyone not from around here to correctly pronounce Ouachita (the county, the river, the lake, or the national forest) the first time around. And no Googling.

:kick:

I find it oddly endearing.

delete

But I have also heard it BAL tee more and BAWL mir

Eee-ran Number One!
Russia Number One!
USA! Pa-toot!