You know how President Bush said “nucular” once, and then liberals and their media officially declared that that was the single biggest news item of the century? And Bush was thereafter a “moron”? That was fun.
You know that FedEx commercial where business people are discussing expansion and they ask an apprentice named Bill to stick a push-pin in China on the big world map —and Bill sticks it in Greenland? (Amazingly, I actually found a video of that ad. Click here and choose the “Map” choice in the menu).
That’s what I was reminded of this morning, when CTV Newsnet anchor Kate (“peace!”) Wheeler told us that one of the most major highways in BC was called the, um, “Cokalla”, or something (said in an I have absolutely no clue what it is kind of way).
Like Bill and China, Kate Wheeler has no clue about British Columbia. I shouldn’t be surprised inasmuch as BC isn’t in Ontario, after all.
It’s Coquihalla, Kate. Co·kih·halla
I captured it in audio. Click to listen.
Betcha she can speak French though. Oh thank God.
What’s actually even more fun is that in their endless loop of regurgitated news headlines, the same gaffe was later repeated in their 11:48 AM PST repeat of the same news headlines over and over. Nobody even thought it was worthwhile to correct it. Actually I guess nobody there knows she said it wrong. And if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, it doesn’t make a noise.
UPDATE – Feb 20 2008: Kate Wheeler emailed me to explain that she knows full well how to pronounce it properly, and it was simply a case of folks talking to her in her earpiece while she was trying to read the script, and that “in fact I added it in to the script on the fly as the writer had omitted it”. And she was nice about it. So we forgive her.
UPDATE: In the next shift of news readers, anchor Jacqueline Milczarek gives the name of the highway a try. She goes with “Co-coo-HALLA”—sounding it out slowly like a grade-schooler, as she reads the word off the teleprompter.
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