At his most regular, it comes out like “ARN-car-NAY-see-uhn.”
That’s pretty close.
I went to my MLB.tv account and found a game from September last year, between the Orioles and the Blue Jays, where Thorne was commentating. I grabbed some examples of his pronunciation of Encarnacion and put them together in a sound file. I’ve uploaded the file to the Vocaroo audio sharing site. Click on this link, and it should play in your browser.
The clip is about 50 seconds long, and it contains six or seven examples. His pronunciation really is something you have to hear for yourself.
Wow, he never said it the same way twice.
Yeah, his inconsistency is perhaps even more impressive than his incompetence.
How do you pronounce “Thorne”? Is the “th” pronounced as a voiced dental fricative (“the”) or voiceless dental fricative (“thorn”, as in the sharp thing on a bush)? Or is it pronounced as “t”? Is the “e” silent? Perhaps not. Many aren’t.
If Encarnacion ever has to mention this moron’s name, I think he should assume that the “t” and the “h” must be pronounced individually, and the “e” must be enunciated, thus: “tuh-horny”.
ETA: Hockey fans might note that Don Cherry has similar alleged trouble with some foreign names, but Cherry is a (mostly) lovable idiot who dresses in suits apparently made from draperies salvaged from Polynesian whorehouses.
I caught a few innings of the Cardinals radio team.
Freddy Galvis was Freddy Glavis for eight innings, until someone corrected them.
Maikel Franco was Mikhail or Miguel
Odubel Herrera was pronounced multiple ways
Mind you, none of those guys are rookies. They even seemed to struggle with their own players. “Wong” was “Wooong.” They tried to pronounce the second D in “Jedd” by holding it out.
And their elocution wan’t the worst part of it. Worst announcers I’ve heard in ages.
Yeah, that is a better way to write what I meant by calling the EE short.
Not to dump on the Orioles’ radio announcers (well OK, maybe a little), but I had to turn off a broadcast the other night when their two stooges went into prolonged rhapsodies about how wonderful Camden Yards is, that it’s now better than ever, nothing beats it as a baseball venue and on and on and on and on.
Gee fellas, one would almost think you’re sucking up uncontrollably to team management/ownership.
Oh, and when it came to butchering baseball players’ names, it was hard to beat Harry (the Ultimate Homer) Caray.
We’re veering a bit off topic here but
First, whomever wrote “dipthong,” it’s “diphthong,” and you don’t pronounce the P. “Diff-thong.” Sorry.
More importantly, I am honestly starting to wonder how sports announcers on local shows get their jobs. There are good announcers out there to be sure, especially at the national level, but the local ones… it’s quite often the case the guy babbling at you could be replaced, for less money, the following day by simply holding auditions.
I hate to pick on him again but the Blue Jays color man on Sportsnet is Pat Tabler, and in 10+ years of doing this job I honestly cannot remember him ever providing a single insight of any substance. Not one, ever. I am not precisely sure what the man is paid to do. He never even presents a strong opinion about anything. His contributions are limited to:
i) Stating things already stated. For instance, Buck Martinez will say “Kevin Pillar in a bit of a slump, he’s 10 for his last 53” and Tabler will say “He’s not hitting so well right now.” Uh… yeah, we know.
ii) During slo-mo replays, literally describing what just happened. You’ll see a ball bounce through Smith’s legs, and Tabler will say “The ball goes right through his legs.” He will not explain WHY this happened. He will not, say, point out that Smith didn’t start his glove on the ground, or that Smith was not quick enough getting into position, or that Smith pulled his head up too early. He’ll just say “the ball went through his legs,” which you already know because you just saw it happen. Twice.
iii) Saying incredibly dumb things. A few nights ago, during the Jays-Rangers game, Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre fouled a ball off his ankle, to his obvious discomfort. And Tabler said “Beltre hates that.” Because, of course, I needed to be told that a person would find the experience of being hit in the ankle by a baseball travelling 85, 90 miles an hour to be an unpleasant one. Gosh, what a fucking brilliant insight, Tabby; otherwise, I would have though Beltre LIKED being hit in the ankle with a damn baseball. Or maybe he is remarkable in this regard and many, perhaps even most, people like to be hit with baseballs. Why, it might be that all across the land people are lining up at batting cages, paying their money, cranking the machines up as high as they’ll go, lying on their backs in the batter’s box and holding their feet over the plate in the hopes of experiencing that wonderful feeling of catching a goddamn fastball right on the ankle bone. “I’m bringing the kids next time,” they shout in joy as their ankles turn purple and swell up like balloons. “They’ll love this!”
I mean, I’m not saying I would be a better color manb than Pat Tabler… uh, actually, no. I totally WOULD be. And so would ten thousand other people who would probably do the job cheaper. Why Tabler keeps his job I don’t know.
So imagine my surprise when I tried listening to other team’s home announcers and found they were often as dumb and pointless as Pat Tabler. I was thunderstruck. I assumed this was a Toronto curse.
Ok, that was pretty funny. Thanks for sharing. I only vaguely remember Thorne from ESPN. He’s most notable to me as the guy who started the story about Curt Schilling’s bloody sock being fake.
Around here, I get the Indians on the radio and Tom Hamilton is as good as they come. However, when he’s off, they got another guy that is just dreadful. And I don’t know if it’s always the case, but the Indians’ radio announcing crew is a one man show. Hamilton can pull it off. This other guy, Rosenhaus I think, gives you so much dead air you wonder if you lost the signal half the time.
In order to not hijack too much, I’ve addressed this comment over here.
That was a thing of beauty. Thank you.
Not an announcer, but Chico Escuela sometimes had problems with “very”.
ETA -
In hockey, Don Cherry used to be really bad with a shitload of European names. I like his “Lalongo” instead of “Luongo”. He has trillions others.
Just lovely. He seems to prefer “Arca Nay See-On,” though “Erca Nace He Own” was also used. Sometimes he tried to just not say the first syllable, speaking quickly in the hopes you don’t notice, so it’s “Canay See Own.”
He also pronounced the name as some sort of French flower: “Ahn car NAY syOH”
That’s pronounced “Kuh-RYE”, right?