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Oops — White House Releases Bush's Pronunciation Guides
The White House made a mistake that will just feed more of the perceptions about President Bush's problems with the English language — accidentally releasing to the press his prepared remarks before the United Nations, including phonetic pronunciation guides for the president to follow.
A guide was given not only for an admittedly tough one like Kyrgyzstan ("KEYR-geez-stan"), but also for Nicolas Sarkozy ("sar-KO-zee"), which seems pretty simple to pronounce as it is.
It's not at all unusual for a leader to use pronunciation guides, but having them in circulation must be pretty embarrassing. As the Times of London noted, the prepared speech did not include a phonetic guide for the name of Aung San Suu Kyi — and Bush predictably stumbled over that one.
Late Update: White House Press Secretary Dana Perino lambasted a question about the president's apparent difficulties with some of these words. “I think that’s a offensive question," Perino said. "I’m going to just decline to comment on it."
Here's one: NEW-clee-ar
September 26, 2007 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
SOOOO WHAAAT????? These kinds of stories just make the king a sympathetic figure. Who doesn't use pronunciation guides? This is absurd and takes away from what should be really reported and discussed. Like the dead and dying on a daily basis in Iraq, the taking away of our fundamental freedoms by these criminals, depriving health care to poor CHILDREN for God's sake, etc. Stop the stupid personal attacks and report the FACTS on the issues.
September 26, 2007 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's another one: TOR-chur (not "en-HANCED in-terr-o-GAY-shun tek-NEEKS")
September 26, 2007 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hmm I feel kind of bad making fun of him now after Michael's comment, but come on. I think this is as much therapy for progressives than anything else. We kind of need this too.
CampaignDiaries.comSeptember 26, 2007 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Perky Press Poodle was all offended that her stenotyping minions dared asking about the idiot's inability '-iterate' intelligibly. She seemed quite miffed . . .
Maybe she wanted to answer real questions like why Bush43 hates poor sick kids and wants they to die while bankrupting their parents . . .
September 26, 2007 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
What Perino actually did was express mock indignation in order to avoid answering the question.
If the press weren't idiots, that's how they would report it as well.
September 26, 2007 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is that really the correct phonetic pronunciation for Kyrgyzstan?
I would think giz not geez.
September 26, 2007 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
The correct answer to the question was obviously yes, and calling it offensive is just dumb. As if Bush never mangles pronunciation.
Still, it was also a dumb question, since the answer is obvious. Frankly, I'd rather they include guides that that he get them wrong and embarrass all of us, although I wonder if these guides aren't sometimes part of the problem of his mangled pronunciations rather than part of the solution.
September 26, 2007 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink