They certainly have a penchant for hard-to-understand names. Is it “Jo-Anne Selburner”, or “Jo Anselburner”?
A similar example is when they give props to the “Lou C. Kerr Foundation”. Fortunately, from the way they carefully enunciate it, it’s clear that it isn’t the “Lucy Kerr” foundation". Still, it bugs me anyway, because initials used with nicknames or diminuated names just seem wrong to me. Cf. “L. Ron Hubbard”.
Darn, I always thought it was “Maura” Liasson, since that’s how she pronounces it. If I saw the name Mara in print I’d pronounce the first A as in “cat”.
I’ve long since tuned out the pretentiousness on People’s Republic Radio. Last summer’s “nee-ZHER” didn’t even faze me.
Robert “Sheegle” from “NPR noozh” does drive me nuts, however, as does his colleague “MEE-shell Norris.” What’s the matter, does “Mih-SHELL” sound too Valley-Girlish for ya?
I was also surprised to learn that the person verbally referred to as “Wawn” Williams is actually named Juan (prounced by us whitebread 'merkins as “hwahn”.)
Sylvia Poggioli
Lakshmi Singh
Joanne Silberner
And for extra credit, Snigdha Prakash
I don’t get why it’s pretentious to pronounce people’s names the way they’d like. I remember discussions about the pronunciation of Niger, and it turns out that their embassy favors nee-JHER. Why should NPR ignore that?
And I’m fairly certain that Juan Williams, Michelle Norris, Mandalit del Barco and everyone else on the freaking network pronounces his or her own name correctly, whether or not it’s how you’d pronounce it if it were your name.
(Also: Michelle Norris has a tremendously sexy voice. Sexy, sexy, sexy. And even though she doesn’t correct interviewees who pronouce it mi-SHELL, I’d do it for her anytime just to hear her talk some more. “Senator Kerry? That’s MEE-shell. Yeah, I know, but what are you gonna do? Just get it right next time.” I want her to record the message on my home answering machine, if you know what I mean.)
Well, then, NPR should then pronounce Buffalo as “Bufflo” … after all, that’s how it’s pronounced there. Why are place names in Spanish-speaking countries pronounced as if they’re being uttered by an exuberant Univision announcer, while they don’t call the capital of France “Paree”? Why doesn’t the media in Spanish-speaking countries reciprocate, and start calling our nation’s largest city “New York,” pronounced in a proper accent, instead of “Nueva Yorrrrrrk?”
From The Onion:
Lately it seems that every person in the media has taken to pronouncing “negotiate” as “nee-go-SEE-ate” rather than the more conventional “nee-go-SHEE-ate”. It may well be an acceptable variation, although I never heard it at all until anouncers started using it about five years ago. Why is this odd pronounciation now universal?
Can’t really blame NPR for that one… all the networks were doing it back in the '80s, what with all the coverage of Central America, and it just stuck. But yes, it is an annoyance to put on an unnatural affectation of pronunciation when there are perfectly good transliteratios. Just so y’all know, here in PR, WE are getting that with many of OUR newscasters, when referring to non-Hispanic names or people/places. Of course, the problem ours have is that the only sample they have ever had of how an Arab, Frenchman, German, Japanese or Indian pronounces things, is old movies… Drives me to scream at my dashboard during my morning drive.
On the NPR issue may I say that I, too, feel uplifted and motivated whenever Sylvia Poggioli says her name… it feels like it’s something you should say before slamming down a drink.
Oh, yeahhhh.
There seems to be a trend afoot to replace the old-fashioned English names for foreign places with the place names in their own language. We’ve had Beijing instead of Peking for a while now, and there seems to be an effort to displace Bombay with Mumbai. It may seem innocuous, but I wonder whether what’s really going on is that it’s becoming politically incorrect to use the English names, so that in 20 years we’re going to be charged with hate crimes for saying Japan instead of Nihon.
As an antidote, I like to practice saying “eye-RACK” every time I hear a news announcer say “ee-RAWK”.
Two gripes:
The NPA announcer has a helluva grating voice. He tries so hard, but the moment I hear him, I’m switching to Polka music or Tupac or praying for static.
One of the locals in the Washington metro area sounds like he’s just eaten a stack of waffles swimming in thick molasses. I’m sure he’s a lovely fellow, but his voice rubs me the wrong way.
Hate to bump this, but I thought I’d mention that the town is also called Car-NAY-gee. I’m pretty much physically incapable of refering to Andrew Carn-a-gee or Carn-a-gee Hall–open my mouth and Car-NAY-gee comes out. How thrilling to hear that Andrew himself used the Car-NAY-gee.
As long as the thread’s been bumped, I want to confess that I was incorrect. According to the NPR ombudsman, at least, Niger should be pronounced NY-jer, not nee-ZHAIR, on NPR. (Scroll down to “You Say ‘Nee-Jair’ But I Don’t” on the linked page.) He cites NPR’s reference librarian, who sides with NY-jer because it’s more familiar to the majority of Americans. In this case, they argue, it’s more important to be familiar than natively accurate.
I was mixing up NPR’s official viewpoint with this column from Slate.com, which states definitively that “it’s not ‘NYE-jur.’”
Sorry. But I still don’t get why people gripe about how other people pronounce their own names…
The one that always caught me was …
Kor Vakollman?
Korvak Oleman?
Ah … it’s Korva Coleman!
I am a born-and-bred American, but I don’t Anglicize the pronunciation of my name, which is not an English name. Are you going to make fun of me as well?
What makes you so sceptical that she’s pronouncing her own name the way it’s supposed to be pronounced?
To me, there’s a difference between “Mara” (mah-rah) and “Maura” (maw-rah). I’ve never heard the “cat” one.
Sorry, there are plenty of whitebread Americans who use the Anglicized pronunciation “Wan” for “Juan” rather than the correct Spanish pronunciation “Hwan.” Don’t you remember “Welcome Back, Kotter”?
It’s Henry Kissinger’s fault.
[QUOTE=An Arky]
I don’t remember the names, but there’s a woman with a lisp, Castle and Daniel Schorr both have that jowl-flapping thing going on, several that have foreign accents (not really a problem for me), that aforementioned Elmer Fudd-sounding guy, etc.
[QUOTE]
Hey, cut my man Dan some slack – he’s about 100 years old, and still pulling his weight. I only hope I’m half as lucid at his age.
Standard practice for years. After all people did call the capital of China “Peiping” before it was “Peking.” The Chinese made a change to how their language was transliterated, using the pinyin system as opposed to the older Wade-Giles system. Pinyin represented the sounds more accurately (that should put an end to the criticism, since “accuracy” is a godlike concept these days).
Remember, the rules of following the preferred proununciation apply to personal names, not place names. There are some exceptions where the place names don’t match the pronunciation (Cairo, IL (KAY-ro) or Valatie, NY (Vu-LAY-shuh) ), but a regional accent is not reason for pronuncing the name that way.
It makes sense, it’s an Irish name. Maloney, O’Malley, Malone, MacGowan, all stressed on the second syllable.
On a related note, I wonder if the Robert Woodjohnson Foundation is the charitable arm of Enzyte. 
This is nonsense, of course. Pinyin is merely a different system from Wade-Giles and like most transliteration schemes it is largely arbitrary. In fact, while Pinyin works better for native Chinese speakers, Wade-Giles works much better for native English speakers.
How, for example, are transliterations like “Qing” more “accurate” when those who don’t already know Chinese have no idea how to pronounce them?
Take “Beijing” for example – this Pinyin transliteration has led English speakers to pronounce the name as “Bay-jing,” whereas a more accurate pronunciation would be “Pay-ching.”
It’s important to keep in mind that no transliteration scheme can be completely accurate because when transliterating from one language to another there are always sounds that aren’t representable in the other language. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that Pinyin is a disaster and should be ignored by native English speakers.