#485 Say Wahr

I was at the Governor’s Mansion for this soiree and fate managed to insert itself into my life in wonderful ways, which I’m not going to go into here. But it was interesting. The chief reason I went was the chance of meeting the governor in person. I didn’t want to interrupt my unbroken streak of Washington governor meetings that stretches back to Dan Evans. Okay, I never met Dixie Lee Ray. Since I am a radio guy, I also wanted to ask our governor a question that’s been on every Disc Jockey’s and Newscaster’s lips for a number of years now—how the heck to pronounce her name. For all the permutations of pronunciations you hear in the media you’d think she was named al qaeda or something. There’s greg-wi’-er, greg’wire, greg’-wah, greg-wor, greg-u-wire. Yes, greg-u-wire, kind of like the way people pronounce that car, jag-u-wire. She said her personal favorite wacky pronunciation was greg-ee-or-ee. Yes¾she said. Because I asked her. By the look on her face, you’d guess it was a question nobody ever bothered to ask, as if they figured they’d pick it up by osmosis somehow, or settle on the most common version in the media. Like people did with Newt Gingrich. For the record, the Governor, prefers the pronunciation greg-wahr’. Kind of like a redneck says wire. Think aborted state tourism slogan, Say Wahr.
The governor also now prefers to be called Chris. There is much speculation about why, but I favor the homonym school of political strategy. Which goes like this: Christine sounds like pristine, which not only overstates pureness, a political liability in these hypocritical times, but reduces too easily from pristine to prissy. Prissy in turn denotes an individual that is a little stuck up and perhaps overzealous in the personal hygiene department—as in anal-retentive. Again, bad images to overcome in the bare-knuckled, roll up your sleeves and get to work, male-dominated, political arena. Chris works better. Cause it kind of sounds like grits. And grit is what you want when it comes down to the wahr.
America, ya gotta love it