That title seems to be the motto of most radio and TV news announcers in English-speaking countries. When they pronounce non-English place names, they all too often give them a French twist. This is especially frequent nowadays, with the 2008 Olympics approaching. On CNN (with the exception of those anchors who actually know how to speak Chinese) we're constantly hearing the name of the capital of China pronounced as "Beige-ing," as if it were the gerund form of a new verb derived from the color beige. Maybe with all that grayish-yellowish sand blowing in from the Gobi Desert, Beige-ing would actually be a rather appropriate moniker for China's capital. Nevertheless, English speakers would get much closer to the real pronunciation if they'd just go ahead and say "Bay Jing," with the "Jing" as in the first syllable of the word jingle.

I first noticed this trend two or three decades ago when we used to get more local news coverage on AFKN, the American Forces Korea Network (which has now dropped the K, having been consolidated into one big global US military network). There was one female anchor in particular who must have gotten excellent grades in high school French, for her Gallic rendering of the name of the city Uijeongbu would have made the pickiest of Frenchmen proud. She called it "Oui-Jean-Boux," with that soft French J and a perfectly nasalized "ah" sound. Okay, so I couldn't tell from her pronunciation whether there was a silent X on the end or not, but don't you think it makes a nice little addition to help emphasize my point? Other Korean cities were given the same treatment. For instance, Daejeon was called "Des Jeunes," meaning '(City) of the Young.' A much more upbeat name than the Korean 'Big Field,' n'est-ce pas?

The exception to this Francophilia is North American broadcasters' pronunciation of Latin American names. They generally try to approximate the Spanish pronunciation, using the nearest English equivalent sounds. Some even go the whole enchilada, saying the names with those purified Spanish vowels and rolled Rs. A British friend of mine once told me that he thought American announcers were pretentious because they pronounced Nicaragua as "Nick-a-RAH-gwa." "How do you Brits pronounce it?" I asked. His answer: "Nick-a-RAG-you-er is how we'd say it."

Well, I say "tuh-MAY-toe" and you say "toe-MAH-toe," but let's hope the broadcasters can get their act together and please our Chinese friends by calling Beijing "Beijing" for next year's Olympics.