Pahk It In, Already [Mark Krikorian]With, I'm sure, a non-presidential purpose in mind, once upon a time the late lamented Anton LaVey wrote an article about hambuger preparation. Yep, he loved them hambugers. Nothin' like a good hambuger.
The president has been the rightful target of much mockery for his "Pahkistahn" pronounciation (a pronunciation defended again just yesterday by Tunku Varadarajan), but I heard something positively hilarious on NPR this week. (Yes, I'm an NPR type of guy — but I love Rush!) There was a report on our South Asian imbroglio and the reporter repeatedly used — in the very same sentence — the Obama-ite pronunciation of Pakistan but the normal American pronunciation of Afghanistan. (And I just noticed the president himself does the same thing.) Look, if you're going to say "Pahkistahn," you need to also say "Ahf-ghan-i-stahn," with a voiced uvular fricative for the "gh," kind of like a French "r". And you should also say "Soorya" for Syria, and "Italia" for Italy, and "Suomi" for Finland, and "Hayastan" for Armenia, etc., etc. Anything else is both ignorant and affected, like Moliere's middle-class gentleman bragging about having spoken in prose his whole life.
05/12 05:53 PMShare
I'm gonna break out "Pahkistahn" depending on the company.
8 comments:
Does Prez Obama pronounce "Dijon" all nasally at the end like a Frenchie?
When y'all start pronouncing Des Moines, Nouvelle Orléans, and Baton Rouge correctly, you can can start whinging about the President's phonemes.
Also, nukular.
I'm gonna start saying Gee Opie as well.
I just call 'em goopers, RB.
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Howsabout CONservative as a new pronunciation? That'd burn 'em up.
There was a report on our South Asian imbroglio and the reporter repeatedly used — in the very same sentence — the Obama-ite pronunciation of Pakistan but the normal American pronunciation of Afghanistan.
In other words: Obama is not, after all, unique in pronouncing the name 'Pakistan' in the same way as the rest of the English-speaking world, rather than in what I claim is the heartland American way;
=> I am twice as right as before.
Somehow Krikorian skipped the "This is central to my point" part of the argument.
The Goopers just want to call anything east of Kansas, Wogland. Calling countries the name they want to be called is just panderisation.
Help! I'm being hair assed!
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