Abu Graib

[Peter A. McGraw]

Aha!  So in his speech to the National War College (and broadcast live by
NPR) yesterday, the president wasn't just being inept.  I mean, he was
being inept, but not JUST being inept.  When he first came to the word, he
hesitated, producing something like [aebu g at ...rEp].  Then the next two
times he settled comfortably into [aebu g at rab].  The speech writer must
have had a "fact checker" check into the correct pronunciation and
transcribe the prescribed two-syllable form in a way he hoped would make it
come out right.  You can hardly fault the fact checker if it didn't work.

Peter Mc.

--On Tuesday, May 25, 2004 12:17 PM -0700 "Allen D. Maberry"
<maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU> wrote:

> The Slate article is accurate as to the pronunciation. However Abu Ghraib
> is a phonetic spelling for the place name which is found in most
> gazetteers as Abu Ghurayb. The "u" is short and unaccented and so tends
> to drop out in spoken language.



*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************