alt Hacker NewsCan't expect Western media to write well. I saw a funnt reel today. It's Italy to Americans but Eye-ran and Eye-raq...
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quesera • today at 7:20 PM
I didn't think of it in time to update my previous comment, so I'll add another!
Decades ago, I knew people who pronounced "Italian" as eye-TAL-yun. They were usually older, sometimes WW2 veterans. This was in an area of the US that has a large Italian immigrant population, FWIW.
I don't know if it was due to historical disrespect of Mussolini-era Italy, some contemporary xenophobia, or just simple ignorance.
They all pronounced "Italy" in the normal way though.
There's no reason for Italy and Iran/Iraq to be pronounced similarly. (Cf Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Idaho?)
But FWIW, the EYE-rack thing is because GWB (most prominently, but others before and after) intentionally mispronounced the name of the country, in a "real american" kind of way, and also to annoy SAD-dumb Hussein as a kind of "we're stupid but we're going to kill you anyway" kind of psyop. Or maybe just "we disrespect you in advance of killing you"?
Americans of other political persuasions usually pronounce the names correctly.