Corpsman

courtesy of my blog: http://cjferrara.blogspot.com/

OK... I have somethings to clear up regarding President Obama's accidental and unfortunate mispronunciation of the word "Corpsman". Hannity and many Republican, Conservative and otherwise oppositional people have been going around mocking him about this. They continually bring up that he reads his speeches from a teleprompter, as if he's being "fed" his answers, and doesn't truly understand what he's saying. Or, is it to suggest that somehow he's not as intelligent as he comes off. Like the teachers on the Simpsons, take away their Teacher's Edition, and they're lost?

First of all, before you click on the video, read the word. How would YOU pronounce it? If you were in the Navy or any branch of the armed forces, you might pronounce it /core'-muhn/; but if not, one might improperly pronounce it just like the President did, /corpse-muhn/. Unfortunate? Yes. Funny? Not especially. Something for the commander in chief of the Armed Forces to learn to pronounce? Absolutely. BUT...

A) Every president since the invention of the teleprompter has read his speeches from a teleprompter. Before then, they wrote the speeches down on paper, and constantly looked down at them throughout the speeches. Reagan did it. Bush sr. did it. Clinton did it. And Bush jr. ABSOLUTELY did it. The key here, is when they're taking questions, do they sound just as eloquent and intelligent as they do when on prompter? Yes, yes, yes, Obama, yes, Bush jr... uh... not so much.

B) a little perspective. During a declaration of war against Iraq, G.W.Bush mispronounced "Nuclear" as "Nucular." Four Times. He reminded me of Biff from "Back to the Future," trying to be threatening but ending off with, "make like a tree and get outta here." This wasn't the first time, either. Bush had been publicly mocked in the past on SNL, and regular news. One would think that someone would take him aside and correct him, so that it wouldn't happen again. I'll bet real money that the next time Obama reads the word Corpsman, he'll pronounce it correctly.

C) Corpsman, as stated before, is an easily mispronouncable word. And the error in question was simply pronouncing it as it was spelled. Unlike "Nucular" or "Subliminable" or "misunderestimate." (Which isn't even a word.)

So, Bush had, like, 5. (Hundred) Obama's got 1. We'll see how many more Obama gets. Will he match the former president's record? Only time will tell.