TheAgitator.com
The Great Dumbing Down of the Right
Thursday, October 9th, 2008That darned elitist Obama. How dare a candidate for president of the United States pronounce the names of foreign countries correctly.
Awfully “ostentatiously exotic” of him.
Meanwhile, the increasingly desperate McCain campaign is now making hay of the whole “his middle name is the same as the last name of the former Iraqi dictator!” thing.
He only got 6000 to a rally in Bethleham PA, about 70 miles outside of Philly? Obama got 20,000 plus in Fredericksburg VA last week, in a county that is depressingly red (and not in the communist sense!). I would think McCain should generate a lot more excitement than that in the heart of Regan Democrat country.
That seems to be the story here- even where he should be strong he just isn’t generating much excitement.
I only have one thing to say: “Warshington.”
We should all learn to pronounce it right. Pakistan has nukular weapons.
I am in no way defending McCain or Bush or anyone else on this issue per se, but to argue that pronouncing it one way or another is ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ is in itself wrong.
On this issue of Iraq, here is a good discussion by Berkeley linguist Geoff Nunberg. When talking about Pakistan, it not entirely correct to say that Obama has it right and McCain wrong. As Merriam-Webster, an authority on American English, shows, either pronouncation is fine.
It is important to understand that language is a fluid, evolutionary process. As many linguists would tell you, language should be described not prescribed. Thus, focusing on issues like this is a waste of time whether you’re attacking Obama for sound exotic, like the conservatives, or whether you’re praising Obama for being intelligent and educated. Let’s stick to substance folks.
Everyone should read Steven Pinker, linguist, before drawing any conclusions.
Pronunciation is not as objective as one may think.
Steven Pinker is not a trained linguist, but he’s a good to read anway. His recent NYT discussion of “nuclear” is good, but contested by linguists such as Geoff Nunberg. This is why everyone should be reading the excellent linguist blog Language Log.
Point taken. And I wouldn’t say anyone who pronounces it as “Pack-istan” was wrong. That’s how I pronounce it.
But Obama’s pronunciation is the way Pakistanis pronounce it.
To denounce that as “ostentatious” is petty and insular.
I wish you would have titled the post “dumbing down of the Republicans.”
When in Rome do as the Romans do!
Down here it is tor-tea-ya but Rush calls them tor-tillas. I’ve always been on to try to pronouce EVERY word according to the language of its origin. Not always 100% but I do believe it is important to give respect to those who language/words we are using.
Now pass the freejolies and give me some chilly.
@Robert S. Porter
Newsflash: When it comes to a foreign name with no equivalent word in your language — there is indeed a right way to pronounce it, try to say it as they do. The dictionary you quote gives both pronunciations simply because most Americans like to say “pa-ki-?stan”. However that is not the right pronunciation.
Going by your logic, is it equally ok to pronounce America as “Um-ree-ca”? Because that’s how the Indian heartland says it.
Not being able to pronounce a foreign word correctly isn’t a serious liability. However it is definitely praiseworthy if someone says it the right way. To pretend otherwise, or to imply, as the NR folks are doing, that it is unAmerican to do so, is fundamentally dumb.
Goddammit so much, don’t we have ANYTHING BETTER TO WORRY ABOUT?
This is about signals of class membership. The pronunciations themselves are neither dumb nor smart, all they do is signal class membership. While liberals self-servingly see the two classes as “the educated and smart” versus “the ignorant and dumb”, this is not how conservatives see the division. I encourage you to read Mark Steyn, one of the writers quoted. He is neither uneducated nor dumb.
He is neither uneducated nor dumb.
… just a dick.
[...] (’Pock-i-stahn’ Hat Tip: The Agitator) [...]
@Abhishek
Huh? Please read the piece by Nunberg.
It is fundamentally flawed to argue that you should pronounce it the way that the locals do it. First, English has a habit of creating their own words, ie Italia/Italy, Deutschland/Germany etc etc. Indeed Pakistan is an English word developed from Urdu. Second, many languages are, for the large section of the population, extremely difficult to pronounce. Look at Mandarin and its four tones.
My point is that it’s an unnecessary debate to have. If people in Europe or Asia pronounce American incorrectly that’s perfectly fine. It doesn’t mean someone’s stupid because their pronunciation is different or not “pure”. You are a perfect example of a prescriptivist, someone who wants to tell others what language is, rather than letting it change and evolve as it has throughout history.
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto, ok. Nuclear, nukular, not so much. Pronunciation, as it pertains to hard and soft vowels, is arguable. Switching positions of letters, not so arguable. And when it comes to proper nouns, you defer to those to whom the title refers. Not doing so just makes you a dick.
So yeah, pronunciation is objective. “Nukular” is incorrect. “I-rack” is incorrect. By this point, even the yellow dog republicans know that, and they revel in it. They think that by going against the convention of correct pronunciation, they are belittling the other arguments of academics who disagree with the neo-conservative, black and white, with-us-or-against-us mentality personified by the Bush administration. Bush himself, of course, does it because he’s an idiot.
Obama pronounces Pakistan the same way the General Petreus does. Why does the GOP hate our troops?
As for it symbolizing class membership–bullshit. The only ones playing at class politics here are the GOP flacks and hacks trying to turn Obama’s choice of pronunciation into a stain of elitism.
@ Robert
“If people in Europe or Asia pronounce American incorrectly that’s perfectly fine.”
That exactly summarizes what I was trying to say. Their pronunciation is indeed incorrect. However that’s not such a big deal.
I never said those who pronounce a foreign name incorrectly are stupid. I do take issue however with the claim that it is elitist or unamerican to pronounce it correctly.
@ Abhishek
I never said it was elitist or unAmerican to pronounce it ‘correctly’. If you notice my very first post, that’s what I said: It’s stupid to attack Obama for saying it correctly as the likes of National Review are doing but it also stupid to pretend that prouncing it the ‘proper’ way somehow reflects a superior quality as Think Progress would have you believe.
I’m saying this is a non-issue either way you look at it.
How does he pronounce “Russia”?
Not necessarily. There is something inherently elitist, though not necessarily bad, about pronouncing something according to the rules of the language it comes from, unless that’s just the way you always heard it. It would probably annoy you if someone insisted on properly pronouncing a bologna sandwich as a “bolonah” instead of “bolonee” sandwich. How about insisting on calling a “Milano cookie” a “Milanese Cookie” everytime you go down the cookie aisle at the grocery store.
It’s usually just a form of pseduo-intellectualism.
You’re right, those quoted at the NRO are full of shit. However, Obama has asked for this treatment in the past by castigating ordinary Americans for being monolingual when, unlike Europeans, we have absolutely no regular need for a second language on the majority of our continent.
>But Obama’s pronunciation is the way Pakistanis pronounce it.
They don’t speak English though. We would, for example, find it exceedingly odd if a US politician began referring to Germany as Deutschland, even if that’s what Germans call it. Why? Because that’s not the English name of the country.
According to Meriam-Webster’s, the hard a version is the preferred English pronunciation.
I’m checking some Youtube clips. I notice that Obama pronounces “Afghanistan” the ‘usual’ way (with ‘a’ as in ‘cat’) and “Pakistan” the ‘Pakistani’ way (with ‘a’ as in ‘hard’). This applies to the “-stan”. So he’s pronouncing “-stan” two different ways.
According to Merriam-Webster, both pronunciations are correct for both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Anyway, I wonder what commenters make of Obama’s pronunciation of “Afghanistan”. Is Obama thereby proven to be uneducated?
unlike Europeans, we have absolutely no regular need for a second language on the majority of our continent.
this is the stupidest goddamn thing I’ve read today, and that’s not an easy award to win. The second-largest country on the continent by population (and the largest by surface area, so the plurality “of the continent”) has two national languages. There isn’t a single country between our southern border and South America where it isn’t extremely helpful, if not outright necessary, to know Spanish. And within the US…well, I live 1300 miles from the nearest national border and would greatly benefit in my day-to-day life from speaking conversational Spanish. The town I moved from had a substantial German-speaking population. Yeah, who needs anything but English?
Actually, many Pakistanis speak English, as do many Indians. This makes sense, considering the history of Pakistan.
“They don’t speak English though.”
Not true. A majority of Pakistanis and Indians speak English. As for the word itself, it was coined in the twentieth century by a Pakistani from an Urdu word. All Pakistanis (and Indians, for that matter) use [pa?k?st?a?n] when they pronounce the name of their country, whether they are speaking in English or a native language.
From the Washington Post article:
“The sage Platt had more information to disclose. “Barack Obama refused to wear an American flag on his lapel,” he said of the man who, at the presidential debate the night before, was wearing a flag pin on his lapel. The audience booed. “Barack Obama, a man who wants to be president of the United States of America, removed the American flag from his chest because it was a symbol of patriotism. Perhaps Barack Obama doesn’t put country first, but he puts fashion first.” ”
Anyone notice that Obama has worn the lapel pin in BOTH debates while McCain has NOT worn it in EITHER?
Thanks for the correction Robert, I read Pinker’s The Language Instinct on the recommendation of someone who disabused me of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis a year ago. Pinker is not a linguist as you wrote, but a psychologist.
From Wikipedia:
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and author of popular science. Pinker is known for his wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.
Pinker’s academic specializations are visual cognition and language development in children, and he is most famous for popularizing the idea that language is an “instinct” or biological adaptation shaped by natural selection. On this point, he opposes Noam Chomsky and others who regard the human capacity for language to be the by-product of other adaptations. He is the author of five books for a general audience, which include The Language Instinct (1994), How the Mind Works (1997), Words and Rules (2000), The Blank Slate (2002), and The Stuff of Thought (2007). Pinker’s books have won numerous awards and been New York Times best-sellers.
Sorry for the clumsy wording above, sentence should read:
“As you wrote, Pinker is not a linguist but, in fact, a psychologist.”
Saturday Night Live poked fun at this very tendency among broadcast journalists in a skit in the 80s. For some reason, I still rememeber it. Does anyone else remember that?
It was Jan Hooks (I think) hyper-pronouncing Nicaragua, and Jimmy Smits was the guest on that show.
Sorry, but it does come off as elitist – even though it’s not a valid argument to make against Obama (which should be needless to say).
[...] The Great Dumbing Down of the Right. [...]
Ben beat me to it, but it bears pointing out that if this is fair game, so is the fact that the “mavericky” candidate pronounces the name of our nation’s capital exactly like the (Caucasian) natives do…
Is this what the election has come to? I couldn’t stand when Jimmy Carter said “Nuculer” but I was only 10 at the time. As for the dumbing down of the Republican party that may or may not be true but as a Libertarian I don’t consider being anti-elitist the same as being anti-intellectual. I appreciate that this is a recent theme in your posts expressing your frustration with republican populism but this feels trivial at best. A good spanking may be what the republicans need but is 4 years of Obama/Reid/Pelosi what we as Americans need?
The thing is, I didn’t know what he was saying the first two times he said it (two times in one or two sentances). I had to wait for the captioning to catch up.
How many people have been “axed” by Rev. Jackson?
So what, pray tell, is the middle name of Jesus H. Christ?
So the entire “McCain campaign” is a small-county GOP chairman?
And is there something wrong with Barocky’s middle name? If so, what? Nobody’s got a problem using “Dub-ya”, as far as I can see.
Bhoooo, bhooo, whooo.
“So what, pray tell, is the middle name of Jesus H. Christ?”
Cleverest answer I’ve read to that question is “Haploid,” owing to his earthly parentage of one.
#39: I am Christian, and I approve that joke. +1!
” The only ones playing at class politics here are the GOP flacks and hacks trying to turn Obama’s choice of pronunciation into a stain of elitism.”
It’s especially asinine when you consider the importance of Pakistan in US policy goals right now, and the difficulties we’re having.
Do we want Pakistan to be friendly, cooperate, and stop aiding the Taliban? Yes.
Therefore, why go out of our way to piss in their soup? Pronouncing the word the way they do is a ridiculously cheap way of showing a bit of respect and deference to a country that is very much concerned with not feeling like it’s being bullied by America.
The 2008 presidential is all but over. Obama will be the winner over an opponent that found it difficult to even get out of bed in the morning. McCain bit off more than he could chew by opposing a much younger and more talented contender. The American public is soon going to get a rare treat as they watch a relatively unknown personality take the job as leader of the most powerful nation on Earth. With the economy in shambles his task will be huge. But with his youthful vigour we will be watching a new and creative approach for getting our nation back on course. There will be those that will be angry as he dismantles a cold war system that is costing the taxpayers over a trillion dollars each year, but he will succeed. Our nation will then see millions of new jobs created as our intra–structure and education system is rebuilt to meet the needs of the 21 century. Obama has not been harnessed by greedy insiders and will be free to pursue his childhood dream of making the world and the nation a better place to live in.
We’re going to have a one party government, all Democrat, all the time. And after they way the press has rightfully done all they could to elect Obama, they’ll do all they can to protect him. Best of all, he was among the most liberal people in the entire legislature. This country is finally going left (only 20 years late, thanks to Reagan) and by this time 2 or 3 years from now we’ll be mucm more like our European and Canadian counterparts. )
On the matter of reciting Obama’s middle name: Isn’t it standard fare to recite an opponent’s full name for derisive purposes? Didn’t the aforementioned Dukakis constantly refer to his opponent’s running mate as “Jay Danforth Quayle”? Didn’t various Democrats often make fun of the middle name “Milhous”?
Why is it “dumbing down” when Republicans do it?
On the pronunciation of “Pakistan”: The correct pronunciation of a word one which people will understand. Otherwise, you’re not communicating. If they’ll understand more than one pronunciation, pick one that will not distract your listeners from hearing the point you’re making.
It grates on my ears when Republicans refer to the “Democrat Party”. When they do so, they are not communicating with me as effectively as they might.
To communicate effectively with ordinary Americans, the correct pronunciation of “Pakistan” is “PackiStan”.