The Economist’s “Democracy in America” blog is irritated by the National Review’s myopic focus on Obama’s pronunciation of Pakistan last night:
These are peeves, not about language but identity. Mr Obama’s “Pah-kee-stahn” is a shibboleth for a certain class: educated internationalists who know that South Asians pronounce the name roughly as Mr Obama does, including in English. Plenty of Americans say “Pakistan” the way Mr Obama does, though it’s certainly a minority preference.
More on Sarah Palin’s “Eye-rack” and the voiced pharyngeal fricative here.
Hmmm ... lemme see here ... another bullshit story about Obama’s strange pronouncement of Pakistan posing as thoughtful analysis (he just so cultured that us low brow people don’t know that’s how its said) followed by another even more bullshit comment about how Palin is white trash for saying eye-rak.
This is in the running for the most hack-tastic story of the week!
Posted by Carl Stevens on Wed 8 Oct 2008 at 12:00 PM