Goof Reveals Phonetic Guide for Bush NEW YORK (Sept. 26) - How do you keep a leader as verbally gaffe-prone as U.S. President George W. Bush from making even more slips of the tongue?When Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, the White House inadvertently showed exactly how -- with a phonetic pronunciation guide on the teleprompter to get him past troublesome names of countries and world leaders.
The White House was left scrambling to explain after a marked-up draft of Bush's speech popped up briefly on the U.N. Web site as he delivered his remarks, giving a rare glimpse of the special guidance he gets for major addresses.
It included phonetic spellings for French President Nicolas Sarkozy (sar-KO-zee), a friend, and Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe (moo-GAH-bee), a target of U.S. human rights criticism.
Pronunciations were also provided for Kyrgyzstan (KEYR-geez-stan), Mauritania (moor-EH-tain-ee-a) and the Zimbabwe capital Harare (hah-RAR-ray).
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the draft, labeled the 20th version and complete with typos and speechwriters' cellphone numbers, had been turned over in advance to help U.N. interpreters who must simultaneously translate leaders' speeches into several languages.
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To be honest, speeches loaded into the teleprompters for all speakers at the UN have such phonetic spellings indicated in the text. I don't like Bush and I think he's not very smart but it was only fair to point this out...
theteach
4 comments:
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Bush's diction is noticeably and mysteriously better in some public appearances than in others. Hmmmm....
Anne, glad to hear from you...
Why do you think?
I've popped in from time to time, but since politics isn't really my forte' I don't always have something relevant to say. For example, I like Obama because he isn't Clinton. Clinton gives me (to use a technical political term) the heebie-jeebies. Also I blog with my phone a lot, which is incompatible with some blogs, so I have a hard time commenting to your WordPress blog. Sorry about that.
I've heard some people speculate that Bush is actually an evil genius but acts stupid to throw people off their guard. Others say he's gotten a lot of speech coaching over the years. But the teleprompter thing makes the most sense to me.
I'm sorry you have trouble with Wordpress...but thanks for stopping by anyway! I'll keep checking your blog. Bush is an evil dummy not an evil genius. I'm hoping Obama picks up the lead soon.
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