What is Digg?163 Comments
- reeder, on 10/10/2007, -8/+53Jesus Christ, we are living in some surreal nightmare where intellectualism is actually frowned upon.
- HarryManback, on 10/10/2007, -5/+48I am certainly no fan of Bush and am not defending his intellect whatsoever, but some of those names are quite difficult to pronounce correctly. I work with a lot of people of other nationalities and have to make notes sometimes with phonetic pronunciations of their names. However, Bush is still an idiot on many different levels...
- kooft, on 10/10/2007, -1/+35I swear I just read an article from The Onion. Had to have been.
- spinchange, on 10/10/2007, -12/+31To contrast level of intelligence and comfort with speaking (let alone pronunciation), the wrong speech was fed into the teleprompter for one of Clinton's State of the Union Addresses. Without missing a beat or giving any indication that something was wrong, he ignored the prompter and gave the speech extemporaneously and no one could tell the difference.
- expert01, on 10/10/2007, -4/+22Duplicate story from a few days ago.
- bsolidgold, on 10/10/2007, -4/+19Who DOESN'T have a hard time pronouncing half those words?
I mean... I'm no Bush fan... but come on, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel on this one. I guarantee he's not the only one who has done/is doing this. - tehpwnrate, on 10/10/2007, -5/+18Half of you Diggers couldn't pronounce the names of these countries from all around the world. If this is your idea of bashing on Bush, you're ***** retarded. The contempt really shows here, and it's sad that instead of coming up with good reasons to attack him, or posting interesting news, you find something that makes you no better than the idiots who wore purple band-aids at the RNC.
- zouden, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13So was I, so I looked it up. Here's the transcript. It was the 1994 address.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=hea ... - totorototoro, on 10/10/2007, -3/+15“The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even a mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second or third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
“The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
—H.L. Mencken, July 26, 1920 - JustAnotherVote, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12You can always tell a Yale graduate... but you can't tell them much!
- vat0r, on 10/10/2007, -4/+13Jesus, this your and you're ***** is getting tiresome. Fcat is you dnot eevn hvae to sepll wrods corerctly for hmuan beans to udnersatnd waht you maen. Get oevr you're ptaheitc sleves.
- jmkiii, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10Please see pop culture.
- Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10Well, you know, apparently being someone you could "have a beer with" is more important than competance, wisdom, sanity, eloquence, intellect, knowledge, experience, and aptitude.
But hey, he can speak Spanish, y'all! Well, enough to order at Taco Bell, but hey... - mrdeathgod, on 10/10/2007, -8/+17or how about...
im-PEECH-ment for TREE-zon - soulknowledge, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Methinks someone's trying to get in those panties
- SeethisPass, on 10/10/2007, -13/+20There are supposed to be higher standards for someones consideration as a world leader than for your job.
- Clade, on 10/10/2007, -4/+10This story is like an intelligence test for website communities. Giving phonetic versions of countries and dignitaries names is standard operating procedure for any international speech. Doesn't matter if you're Bush, Clinton, Steve Jobs, or whoever. If speech writers write your speech they will spell Kazakhstan phonetically to prevent an international level insult. Fark even knew this, yet DIGG fell for it. Interesting.
- 1laradream, on 10/10/2007, -9/+15WTF! He pronounces "Mauritania" as moor-EH-tain-ee-a !
- Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7If nerds can teach themselves how to speak Klingon, you'd assume the "leader of the free world" would eventually be able to pronounce all them thar funny names.
- oakapple, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Ironically, being an dry drunk, you really couldn't have a beer with Bush.
- drmitchell, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I am no fan of the President. I think he should have been impeached four years ago.
But this nit-picky article is ridiculous. Of course he's given phonetic guides to pronounce the names and foreign counties and leaders. I'd be willing to bet most world leader are, in their own languages, and I'm sure past presidents have been given the same sort of help.
Now can we all go back to more important issues? - kittell, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7I'd be interested to read your source on this (seriously).
- ubuntuedgy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Yeah, I work at a university and employ students of many nationalities. The names can get very tricky...Bush is still an idiot.
- dondara, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Oooo, somebody went to Harvard
- tehpwnrate, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5How should he be pronouncing it?
- joessandwich, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7Buried.
As much as I hate Bush and think he's a moron, this is common for people reading off a teleprompter. It is a difficult thing to read off so any word that may be difficult to pronounce is spelled phonetically. All of your newscasters and speakers do it too. - Rawler, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6You equate irrational authority with leadership...
not true. - ralph12c41, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4And your Yale G.P.A. was.....??
- Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7Calling your bluff, like I always do to Bush apologists: If Yale is such a great bastion of mental extercise, show us something Bush wrote when he was there. I mean, surely he wrote SOMETHING that shows he has more than two synapses to rub together.
I won't hold my breath, since apparently it's hard to find any of his essays that aren't in crayon. - robbiemuffin, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5This is just a little bit tragic. That guide is an out-right requirement... no matter if it is Bush or someone more talented at public speaking like Obama. I mean, I like to poke at Bush as much as the next guy, but he didn't do anything wrong and it would be wrong if that text didn't exist!
- djpants428, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4There was another speech he gave in front of Congress on Health Care on September 22 1993. The teleprompter had the wrong speech, so he basically did the first ten minutes from memory and a few outlines on paper.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_n6_ ...
and here is a NYT article where he makes reference to the problem:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0 ... - TheTaoOfBill, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Who wants to sleep when we can do it? AMIRITE?!
- Godlike, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Uh... is there a difference?
Wow... I was going to try to quantify that, but Britannica doesn't have a pronunciation guide (Given that, do they serve any purpose now?) and dictionary.com sucks. Maybe someone a little less lazy can prove me wrong. - detokaal, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Does anyone else see this a courteous and smart? Learning how to pronounce someones name is important in any social context. With a few hundred names it makes sense to learn them the fastest way: phonetically.
- defwheezer, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I'd love to see the chimp in a similar predicament- 20 minutes of the vacuum brained blank star he used at the '04 debate is my guess...
- eboskie1, on 10/10/2007, -10/+13What the hell is the big deal here??? He doesn't want to mess up their names so he has them spelled out how they are pronounced.. I couldn't pronounce half of those damn names and I'm sure many of you couldn't either so this is just Bush bashing at its finest in my opinion....
- truncat, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5"I can't do it so I shouldn't expect the president to" is a fairly ***** rationalization. I don't know about you, but I'd like the president of my country to actually be smarter than most of its population.
- barc0001, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Perhaps. But then I turned 12.
Seriously. The name "Mugabe" has been in the news for the last decade at least, everyone and their dog has at least heard of Mauritania more than once, and Caracas is easy to guess even if you've never heard it before. The standards for a statesman should be much, much higher. - ElbridgeGerry, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Kerry also went to Yale.
- urbandistrict, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Charisma and character are traits of people would consider admirable qualities for public leaders. Having a sharp wit is indeed a trait of what we would consider an intelligent person. Therefore using it as a gauge mental competence seems valid to me.
- FunkyNuts, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I was going to post something similar, but you've put it so eloquently I don't need to. I mean, really, this is what Bush-bashing has come to? Next they'll be looking for banana peels for him to slip on. I'm no Bush fan either, but it's sooooo tiresome to see the anti-Bushies looking for any angle to discuss their hatred of him.
- urbandistrict, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Note to critics: Don't be the guy on digg who's comments begin with "Half of you Diggers..."
Elitist much? - sinbot, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4MENSA tested me at a 172 IQ. Being intelligent and knowing how to pronounce words or names you aren't familiar with are not connected. I hate when I'm expected to pronounce Nguyen or the tsetse for a tsetse fly. Man was I amazed when I learned Oaxaca, Mexico is pronounced more like Wa-ha-ka (I'm no good at phonetic writing either). How about honorificabilitudinatibus? Can you say that? How about Marjan? Cripes I have a name common to English and native English speakers still don't get it right.
For all that there really is to insult Bush on some people are choosing that he is trying to be polite by not butchering people's names? - shredswithpiks, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3my guess is that the digg community is large enough two unique groups of people, both of which don't surf digg every minute of every day, are getting dupes to the front page. Just a guess, though.
- reeder, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I'm sorry, but if you are the President, it's your ***** JOB to know every leader of every nation. If he pulled that cheat sheet ***** at a Co., he'd be fired immediately.
Stop covering for this idiot. Next time something similar to this comes up, ask yourself how Clinton handled it:
By not being retarded. - kittell, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Maybe we should elect a Trekker next time.
- hplasm, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Exactly- what he means is that Leadership is inspiring; Authority is usually ***** with a big stick.
- kronix2, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Who doesn't know how to pronounce Mugabe or Sarkozy? These are very prominent leaders of countries which receive extensive coverage in international news. They aren't the leaders of some obscure, internationally insignificant country.
You expect the guy who's representing you at the UN to know how to pronounce the name of the President of France. It's not like Sarkozy is difficult to pronounce for any other English-speaking person. - tizz66, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4I'd probably have trouble with those names too, so in advance of my speech I'd ask someone how to pronounce it, then remember it. But maybe I'm stupid.
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