White House prepares ‘phonetic guide’ for Bush.

[kpete]

White House prepares ‘phonetic guide’ for Bush.

As President Bush spoke to the United Nation’s General Assembly this morning, “a marked-up draft of the president’s speech popped up on the U.N.’s website” that included “phonetic spellings of some names and countries, and the cellphone numbers for Bush speechwriters.” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino got annoyed when a reporter asked “if the president has trouble pronouncing some country’s names,” calling it an “offensive question” before saying, “it was taken down and there’s nothing more to say about it.” Blake Hounshell has some of the phonetic guides over at Foreign Policy:

• Kyrgyzstan
• Mauritania
• Harare
• Mugabe
• Sarkozy
• Caracas

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/25/white-house-prepares-phonetic-guide-for-bush/

[babylonsister]

1. Bwhahaha! Oye, add this to the 'you can't make this stuff up' list! nt

[annabanana]

2. That's priceless... (listening to Tom Hartman talking about this now)

He really is an idiot.

[MADem]

3. Ah THANK they spay-ell out alla his spee-chuz fone-et-ik-ally. NT

[DinahMoeHum]

4. Do they show him how to pronounce "nuclear" ???

just wondering. . .

:evilgrin:

[eppur_se_muova]

5. I'd like to see 'Mafeking' appear about 12 times in one of his "speeches" ... nt

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Caracas??????

He needs help pronouncing CARACAS? :rofl:

[yardwork]

11. Especially surprising (not) since he's supposedly so "fluent" in Spanish.

[ChickMagic]

12. Wouldn't Peru have to be spelled Perru

for the trilled "R"?

[yardwork]

13. I sincerely doubt that * even attempts a trilled r.

He may roll his r's but it would be for a completely different reason.

[ChickMagic]

16. Good point

I forgot that he learned Spanish from Peggy Hill.

[DFW]

15. He thought someone was saying "crack us."

[ProgressiveFool]

7. That would be the dream job for a disgruntled White House employee

Imagine the parting shots you could dish out.

[DFW]

8. Well, he can't pronounce "Democratic"

And, after all, that's two syllables more than he can handle comfortably
in a word. As I am station chief for Europe for my little outfit, I am used
to this, but for the rest of you, here is an advance listing of some Bush
versions of countries of importance to us here in NATO-land:

Fran (France)
Germ (Gemany)
Spay (Spain)
Sweet (Sweden)
Po' (Poland)
Rush (Russia)
It (Italy)
Holler (Netherlands)
Bell (Belgium)
Check (Czech Republic)
Rumor (Rumania)
Bulge (Bulgaria)
Fin (Finland)
Den (Denmark)
Sir (Serbia)
Crow (Croatia)
Slow (Slovakia)
Slow (Slovenia--no one told him there was a difference)

But he is starting to acquire some sophistication, at long last.
There is one European country where he comes close to pronouncing
the whole name of it correctly:

Australia (Austria)

In the South Pacific, it's the other way around: Down Under to him is "Austria."


Only 1 year and 4 months until I can stop having to apologize for being from Texas!!!!!!!!

edit: PS--not all countries listed are NATO members, of course, but they are
in the neighborhood, and we visit from time to time :-)

[yardwork]

14. LOL!

[DFW]

17. P.S.

Slovakia is also sometimes known as "bad czech"

[Hubert Flottz]

9. Like my tag line sezzz.

[yardwork]

10. Didn't you hear what the lady said? "There's nothing more to say about it."

So stop saying that.