Everyone knows that Barack Obama is lost without his teleprompter, but his latest blunder suggests that the teleprompter may not be enough unless it includes phonetic spellings. In this case, the word "Orion."
Obama was speaking at a White House roundtable on clean energy systems, and repeatedly saluted Orion Energy Systems, whose CEO, Neal Verfuerth, was present at the event. Obama referred to "Orion" a number of times. Only problem was, he appeared to be unfamiliar with the word: (continued)
Unbelievable! Orion is one of the best-known constellations, mostly because it actually looks like its namesake. So evidently we have to add astronomy to history and economics as subjects of which Obama is remarkably ignorant.All terrific press for Orion, except that Obama kept pronouncing the company's name wrong, calling it OAR-ee-on.
Or(eye)on or Or(ee)on, same thing. Same as Tomate, TomAto. Same as you can say (eye)ran, or (ee)ram..
In fact, Or(ee)on is the most accepted international pronunciation. Almost makes me like Obama because of it.
Webmaster: Not if you're speaking ENGLISH. There are no alternate pronunciations.
Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, 11th Edition
Ori·on
Pronunciation: (ō rī′ən)
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Latin, from Greek Ōriōn
Date:
14th century
1 [Latin (genitive Orionis)] : a constellation on the equator east of Taurus represented on charts by the figure of a hunter with belt and sword
2: a giant hunter slain by Artemis in Greek mythology
Posted by: exitboy2012 | May 02, 2009 at 07:02 PM
To be fair, that's the latin pronunciation.
Posted by: Donkeydikc | April 24, 2009 at 12:41 AM