Making fun of, or mispronouncing names, is standard insulting behavior. Getting them wrong in journalism is also standard if you are someone they don't like. Individuals do it regularly, but we all don't have a research department.

Saakashvili! SA KASH VILLI! Right?

Every time that guy says "Ko-sue-kay" "kitta-jim-a" I want to smack my tv. It's Ko-skay. The U in Japanese is almost alway slurred. Not only are they adding a syllable, they're empasizing it. It's an easy mistake to make, but it's also an easy, easy mistake to fix. (Tokyo is not three syllables, either.)

Where they really need some interns, though, is on their grammar: you've got Michael Phelps swimming around like some aquatic god, and NBC keeps asking "where's he at?"

King Me again. Another great post. I don't think NBC wants to get it right. There is a prevailing viewpoint in our culture that it's somehow un-American to be able to pronounce foreign names correctly. Makes us seem elitist or something instead of knowledgable about the world. Costas is part of that paradigm. I would suggest watching and listening to the boxing commentator (Atlas I think?) Not only does he get the names right, he actually knows something about each boxer, even from small obscure countries. He's absolutely wonderful and makes you want to watch the boxing, even if you don't know that much about it. I know he's not getting paid enough to do his own research, so I'm assuming he is using NBC resources. Proof if any was needed that being conscientous about your job isn't that difficult.

Thanks again

Diana Witt

I've been hearing it pronounced "Bayzhing" ever since it stopped being called "Peking". I think most people have been pronouncing it that way. I've only recently (as in, since the 2008 Olympics began) started forcing myself to say "Beijing" with the J sound. So I cut them a little slack on that.

On the other hand, they, as announcers, have been saying it a lot, so, they should really be over the hump as far as learning the new/proper pronunciation.

How about Persuasion? There are others, but I want to post first, before all the other great writers who read the King.

ZH in English. We just do not know how to spell that sound

Wally Pryor announced both men's and women's University of Texas basketball games for many years. I remember one time, when Jody Conradt's Lady Longhorns played the Russian national team, Pryor had obviously done his homework. I don't know if he recruited someone from the Russian Department or what, but he pronounced every Russian player's name correctly. It showed respect, and it showed that he took his job seriously.

That kind of error--if, like you say, it was made over and over again--is inexcusable for Costas and for NBC.

"Ramsey said he believed Bay-zhing came into usage because it sounded more foreign, more mysterious. Some in the West may subconciously[sic] believe the harder-sounding “jing” sounds like a slur against the Chinese"

Uh, nice out-of-your-ass theories there, S. Robert. I'm no professor, but could it be the simple fact that the word 'beige' is pronounced 'bayzh' that makes it quite natural for an English speaker to slip into 'bayzhing'?

Other examples that use the "ʒ" sound, taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_chart_for_English_dialects: pleasure, seizure.

Is there anything more embarrassing than a language-maven rant that contains language errors itself? (and yes, the article actually spelled 'subconsciously' wrong too!)

I just wanted to get one.

I hear the media make the mistake for Spanish all the time. Chavez is always pronounced Shavez. I have no idea why since that is not how it is pronounced in English.

This article shows a prescriptivism that's troubling from a linguistics professor.

Place names are just words, and it is no way "incorrect" for them to differ across languages. We call it Germany, they call it Deutschland -- no one thinks that's a problem, right?

Nor does it matter if the spelling happens to be identical (or the transliteration more careful). Paris is Paris, but we don't pronounce it "Pa-ree" (unless we are being pretentious). We pronounce it like we pronounce any other word that we know: the way we have always heard it.

Beijing is just as grandfathered in as Paris, Tokyo, and Mexico.

Sure, in the case of names we are seeing for the first time, it does behoove us to try to get as close as we can to the original pronunciation. So I agree about the PEOPLE'S names.

And hey, if we think that the Chinese would appreciate the effort of making this change, that would be an admirable gesture too.

But the bottom line is that if most native speakers of a language do it, it's not wrong in that language.

Americans in general use Frenchy pronounciations when they believe they need to sound exotic or sophisticated, but we often are wrong.

Beijing is not like Paris. P-A-R-I-S in English is pronounced Paris, rather than Pahwree. (That French R is a sound we really do not have in English.)

But Jing in English is Jing, as in Jingle Bells. The Zhing is a mistaken affectation, a hicky attempt at sophistication. If my brother every starts calling himself Zhoe rather than Joe, I will know he has zhumped the zhark.

Tim Daggett continues to call Alicia Sacramone "sac-ra-moh-nee", when she pronounces it "sac-ra-mohn". Sure, Italians pronounce all the syllables, but Italian-Americans often do not.

But of course, he is an idiot.

I can understand having a bit of a struggle with truly challenging pronunciations, but "Vyatchanin" isn't that difficult -- if you get that the initial "vy" is pronounced "vee" you should be all set because the rest of it sounds just like it looks. But making matters even worse, Costas got Mr. Vyatchanin's first name wrong, too. The second "a" in Arkady isn't pronounced with a long vowel sound (i.e., arcade-y), but with the short vowel (i.e, r-cod-ee). I guess Bob' gruesome new hairpiece must be squeezing his brain too tightly.