Dept. of Botched Pronunciation: Whatever

DURING THE DEBATE between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Cleveland on February 26, Tim Russert of NBC asked Clinton about the presumptive president-elect of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev. Stumbling over his name, Clinton let Russert do the pronunciation for her, saying after his correction, "whatever." Not exactly the approach I'd take to the name of the next head of state of Russia...

For Clinton and anyone else interested, the correct pronunciation is /mʲɪˈdvʲedʲəf/. (I originally thought the second "d" was more like /ʤ/, but it turns out there's considerably more nuance to the pronunciation, with the palatalized consonant /ʲ/, which I can't find any examples of in English.)

Dept. of Common Knowledge: Survey says...

HARVARD RECENTLY RELEASED the results of a public opinion survey on the term "socialized medicine." Guess what? Respondents who were Democrats said they approved of "socialized medicine" as they understood the term. And Republicans? Republicans thought of "socialized medicine" as a pinko-Commie-freedom-hating scourge. See the self-evident data for yourself. (I jest of course. Critical analysis of the study forthcoming, along with some other interesting public opinion data on health care...)