Putin

[Steve K.]

On Sat, 5 Aug 2000 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:

> Why do American TV announcers pronounce the name of the Russian leader
> POOT-uhn (which sounds like a kind of euphemism for farting) instead of
> poo-TEEN (which is surely closer to the way that the Russians say it, and in
> any case hasn't the weird connotations)?

Actually, when I researched his name, I found that it's closer to
POOT-yhn and is definitely not poo-TEEN. I checked with Russian sources,
our etymologist checked with a bigtime Russian acadmeic, and I sat myself
down and watched a newscast on Vremya to verify this.


--- Steve K.