Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.

Mark Reed wrote:
> > I find the habit of many people to
> > pronounce English perfectly then suddenly say "Beijing" exactly as in
> > Mandarin rather disconcerting, particularly on the news networks.
>
>I call that "Alex Trebekking", and I agree that it's disconcerting.  I
>believe that if you're speaking English, you should pronounce things
>Englishly.  Don't show off your mad language skillz by ordering a
>[bur:'ito] instead of a [br\='i4oU] at Taco Bell, unless you're
>placing the entire order in Spanish...
I don't disagree, but as a long-time fan of Jeopardy, I'll defend Alex. He's
not entirely consistent. True, he pronounces French words correctly, but
then, he's a Canadian, and they're supposed to know....

I first began to notice this practice back in the 80s, during Iran-Contra,
when all of a sudden some (non-Hispanic) newspeople started pronouncing
"Nicaragua, Ortega, contra(s)" etc a l'espagnole; at some point SNL Weekend
Update did a nice take on it........

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