| You Say Niger; I Say Neegere... |
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| July 9, 2003 |
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Listen to Rush...
(...roll a bunch of media nuts trying to create a new pronunciation for Niger)
(...from March 11, 2003 playing the Emir of Qatar proving that Rush is Right)
 There's now a disagreement on how you pronounce the name of the African nation of Niger. Click here for the Merriam-Webster pronunciation, and you'll hear that pronunciation is "Neigh-Jer." But like Qatar, which was wrongly called everything from "cutter" to "kotter" as in "Welcome Back Kotter," Niger is now called "Nih-geer," "Ne-jeer," etc. I rolled you audio of several people in the press trying their own hand at this game.
As with the word "gravitas," this is a chance for people in the press to seem smart by claiming they alone know how to pronounce a word properly. In fact, they're just copying some head lemming who says it. (Note that no less a person than the Emir of Qatar agreed with Rush on his nation's name.) I remarked that Niger Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality has never said, "I'm Neigh-geer Innis," so I don't think that's how you pronounce it. It was further suggested that members of the press fear that the name "Niger" sounds too much like a certain racial slur. What do you think? |
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