toe-may-toe --- tah-mah-toe
eye-rack --- ear-rock
lets call the whole thing off

Garrison Keillor once said that only people raised on dairy farms in Wisconsin prounounce foriegn names correctly in a vain attempt to not appear to be raised on dairy farms in Wisconsin.

Mixing foreign proper nouns into english does get pretty silly at times. But 40 years ago you couldn't escape unneeded French and Latin quips in books.

About 20 years ago there was a reporter on LA TV, probably Mexican, who used spanish nouns for almost everything. I was in LA last year and she was using the english nouns.

It comes from a number of causes. First, schools simply don't teach grammar to communications majors. What you say or write doesn't matter as long as you look good doing it and/or have the right attitude.

Second, non-native english speakers may just forget the noun.

The third reason refers back to the first - if you have no concepts other than to be a "professional" then say a few things to remind the dummies of who they are. It sounds exotic and TV news doesn't mean anything anyway.

Yes, yes, yes. This is one of the more absurd conventions in TV news (and there are many--like standing live outside a place where something occurred the night before). Don't they realize how pretentious they sound?

I guess Boudreaux would have a problem with my usage of "Nuevo York."

It strikes me that the primary purpose of speech is to communicate information--preferably in a relatively efficient manner. If information is being provided to Americans "Meks-e-ko" is far more efficient that "Mea-he-ko." Maybe that will change some day, as more and more Mea-he-ko-ans filter into the US, but it isn't the case now.

A few years ago, I heard NPR's Scott Simon refer to an article in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung--Munich's newspaper of record. He so miss-prounounced the name of the newspaper that it took me a while to figure out what he was referring to.

On the other hand, it is worth noting that English--even American English--has taken in a number of nouns and verbs from other languages, and that is why the language is so rich. And they have usually adopted the foreign pronunciation for the words. If an American were to go to an Italian style restaurant and wanted to order lasagne (pronounced "la-san-ya"), what would he ask for? La-san-ya. If an American were to go into a Spanish style restaurant and wanted to order fajitas (pronounced "fa-hee-tas") what would he ask for? Fa-hee-tas. "Fa-gi-tas" (which would be the obvious American pronunciation) sounds grotesque--almost like the Italian term for indigestion.

BTW, have you ever heard a non-German-language speaker use the word Weltanschauung? The word was adopted into the American English language decades ago (it is in my 1967 college dictionary) but it is painful to hear people mangle it.

Have you ever heard Japanese speakers use words from any language other than their own? That is painful. Sutoroberi-aisu for strawberry ice (cream), arubaito for job (from Arbeit), Ajia for Asia...

And raj forgets that most Americans, when ordering bruschetta, ask for brew-shay-ta.

Leaving out silent consonants is one thing, but speaking in a completely flat American accent one moment then switching to the most authentic regional Spanish or Mexican accent for one word is a little . . . wierd. It just sounds odd. It sounds like the broadcaster is being dubbed out by a native speaker momentarily. It distracts the English-speaking and thinking mind from the content of the broadcast.

Have you ever heard Japanese speakers use words from any language other than their own?

Yes, we have. A number of years ago, we were at the NationalTheater in Munich, attending an opera. During an intermission of the five hour opera (Der Rosenkavalier--a snore fest, but it really wasn't that bad), we went up to try to get a bit of refreshment. A Japanese fellow tried to order in American English. Nobody could figure out what he was saying. Not even me--a native American English speaker. But he could point. And that got the job done. Perhaps an early version of point and click.

I would think from a conservative perspective -- that is the idea akin to Stan Lee's old saying that there's nothing wrong with making a kid pick up a dictionary and look up a word -- most of you would appreciate the use of a proper pronounciation of a name or place. After all, if the actual German pronounciation of Volkswagen is folks-vogen, then why not call it that?

Besides actually showing some respect, it also forces a person to actually call something by it's proper name and maybe, even stir the curiosity of a person to, sat, head over to Barnes & Noble and learn something about Mexico. Basically to better oneself and be more than just a provincial.

Of course, I also come from a household where we may have been middle-class (in this case, black middle class, which until now really meant white poor), but who went to college, learned to cook French cuisine and traveled to other countries. Essentially, the type of household where people aspired to better ourselves and rise beyond our stations in life.

You're surely not accusing us of being anti-intellectual. But what purpose would be served by talking about tourists in Venezia or art in Firenze, the Taoiseach in Baile Atha Cliath and the president of the Rossiyskaya Federatsiya (or Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo)...or referring to various other officials and places by local languages (Bhutan, for instance, officially speaks Dzongkha, language I had not actually heard of until just now). Maybe it might work to use certain words in languages other-than-English, but what, exactly, would be gained by the constant showing-off of references to Dzongkha? A great deal would be lost, especially in cases where English-speakers are unaccustomed to dealing with the languages in question. It's not respect, in other words, it's simple communication.

In any event, most languages I've ever studied do tend to rename places--"Londres" for London, "Meiguo" for America, "Chugoku" for China--and nobody seems particularly offended by this. (There's also the odd notion of the "proper name" for a place: Please don't ever mention this to the people of Derry/Londonderry (or Diaoyu/Senkaku), or you may get into a fight. Insisting on a single "proper" name for a place is, with some frequency, a recipe for trouble.)

"You're surely not accusing us of being anti-intellectual."

Not at all Paul. Not at all. But I do think that when it comes to the MSM, a lot of critiques are made by outside folks without giving consideration to other perspectives in this particular case -- or in general arguments, to the nature of how media organizations work in the first place. It's more difficult to make valid criticisms of MSM if you don't work in these organizations or if you don't actually talk to the people whom work in them.

I think as much of Boudreaux's and Wendling's complaints are as much a visceral dislike of the media as it is a possibly valid criticism. But I could be wrong.

Beyond all that, I just don't see any of this pronounciation business as "condescending and pretentious" as Wendling complains. It's not like some white male news reporter using black street venacular in an interview with a black person, a situation where the use of such venacular makes no sense. Now that's not only condescending -- although I'd be too busy laughing at the doofus to be insulted -- but it makes the reporter look silly to boot.

"In any event, most languages I've ever studied do tend to rename places--"Londres" for London, "Meiguo" for America, "Chugoku" for China--and nobody seems particularly offended by this."

True. But there is also nothing wrong with knowing a city's actual name (that is, the name of the city according to the dominant language of that area) either. Again, knowledge isn't a bad thing.

There may be nothing wrong with knowing a city's actual name--the opposite!--but surely you'd agree that no particular purpose would be served by a reference to "Nihon" or "Osterreich."

Paul Musgrave wrote:
"There may be nothing wrong with knowing a city's actual name--the opposite!--but surely you'd agree that no particular purpose would be served by a reference to "Nihon" or "Osterreich."

Like 95 percent of everything in life, Paul, it's all about context. Particularly in this discussion, a reference to Nihon or Osterreich might make sense. Or even in a long feature story (if you're writing) or a radio documentary. In fact, using proper names may even make sense if you're in a bar or salon somewhere having some discussion, esoteric or otherwise.

On the other hand, if you're simply writing a six-inch news story or just a short news brief, just plain Japan or Austria will suffice.

RiShawn, you've made Zach's point, which is that when non-English pronunciations are used, there's typically no contextual reason to do so.

Actually Paul, as I re-read Wendling's post, I haven't. In any case, neither Wendling or Boudreaux made any distinctions in terms of context -- and I'm not exactly blind or poor of reasoning. But thanks for disagreeing.

Nobody's accusing you of being blind. But when Zach quotes someone approvingly as saying:

If reporter Jones of CNN or ABC is reporting on some goings-on in, say, Mexico City, he'll not say "Meks-e-ko" (as native English speakers pronounce that country's name); instead, he'll say "Mea-he-ko" (the way native Spanish speakers pronounce it) . . .

then that, to me, suggests that there is no contextual reason to use the pronunciation! It is true that Zach and Boudreau also allege multicultural bias, but that hasn't been a particular focus of what you and I have been debating on this point. And, indeed, I don't know why we are debating this, since we are either talking past each other or splitting hairs.