Wednesday, August 20, 2008

How DO You Pronounce Beijing?


So, I'm lying on the couch watching the Nightly News on NBC. Brian Williams said..."reporting LIVE here in BAY-JING.."
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What? Did he just screw up? I waited.... damn. He just said it again. Did someone change the pronounciation of Bay ZHEENG?

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I flipped around. Charlie Gibson said Zheeng. (oops... that's CHARLES Gibson, to you. He is anchoring the news. When he is not, he is plain old Charlie. Just like they tried Katherine Couric on for size....then went back to Katie, but I digress as usual.)

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So I googled. And found this. Brian Williams is right, it's BAY JING. Imagine that. The place used to be Peking. Then in 1949 it became Beijing, and we've pronounced it wrong all this time.

Not me of course, I'm much too young.

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