Purity of pronunciation
I know, I know, language is about change. Without change there is stagnation, death and taxes. So change, be my guest, be different, but don’t be an idiot. I am referring here to a strange tendency of news broadcasters to try and pronounce foreign words and names with the foreign accent.
There are several issues, which I will enumerate herewith:
- The practice is inconsistent. I hear “Gorbachyov,” instead of the American Gorbachev, but it is still “Russia” rather than “Rassiya,” “Moscow,” instead of “Maskva,” “Israel” instead if “Eesrael,” et cetera.
- It is not done with all the languages. It’s primarily done with Spanish, French and sometimes Russian. I’d love to hear Peter Jennings try to pronounce Japanese and Chinese names and places as they do in Japan and China.
- What’s the point? All it does is make the speaker sound pretentious (as if saying “now let me show you how the natives pronounce this”).
- It sounds stupid, dumb, idiotic, and to the speakers of the foreign language it sounds ignorant. As a Russian, I have no issues with an American pronouncing Russian words in an American fashion. When the American tries to sound Russian pronouncing Russian names and places, the American sounds like someone doing a bad Russian imitation (a la Bond villains from the 60’s). So frankly, it’s offensive in a cretinous sort of way.
So please, say Putin with a hart P, don’t say Puerto Rico like you are Ezra Pound reading one his poems. You’re in America, speak English, really, it’s okay!
5:08:30 AM 
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