Is anyone else sick of this Ruling Class attempt to express their intellectual superiority over we provincial rubes? This has annoyed me for a while, but the latest example is Obama pronouncing Ivory Coast in the local French dialect. I don't know, it just irritates me because it has a lot of unspoken significance. It's another way of expressing "the American way is wrong and inferior; the internationally accepted term is better". Granted, Obama did not invent this practice, but he does it with a certain smarmy smirk. Pah-KEE-stahn, Qatar is now "gutter", Ivory Coast is "Cote d'Ivoire". He's so earnest in trying to convey how post-American he is. I just bristle at pretentiousness masquerading as intellectual depth and worldliness.
It's not uncommon for one language to pronounce another language's terms in a way more natural to the first language. I strongly get the impression that it's only Anglicized, and especially Americanized, words that are touted as anachronistic and badly in need of updating. Nobody is up in arms over the French calling London "Londres" or Germans pronouncing Florida as flah-REE-duh.
Maybe it's just me? I don't know. But I'll damn well call it Pair-us instead of Pah-ree unless I'm actually in France and speaking to the natives. I expect statements from the President to convey useful information to the American citizenry, not come across as a 3 AM commercial for Rosetta Stone.
