It might have taken 40 years for Biden to learn the lesson that occasionally less is more, especially when speaking as president. But he seems to have mastered it. While shopping in Nantucket with his beloved Jill and beloved son Hunter, reporters hounded Biden about one topic, worded differently. According to Mediate, reporters were heard asking:

“Mr. President, what’s your reaction to Donald Trump having dinner with a White nationalist?”

And:

“Mr. President, what do you think of Donald Trump having dinner with a White nationalist? What do you say, Sir?”

Biden unleashed the perfect response:

“You don’t want to know what I think.”

The answer is genius on so many levels, even though it was almost surely off the cuff. For one, it keeps the entire focus on Trump while also conveying anger and disgust that is almost jolting coming from “good guy” Biden.

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Biden isn’t about to make this political as between him and Trump. Trump damaged himself, perhaps irretrievably, so why make any part of it “Biden says this, and Trump responds with that…”

And yet Biden’s fury and pain that something like this could happen is a shot straight at Trump and the growing number of people on the Far Right that find anti-Semitism and racism more acceptable and open.

This is Biden with 40 years of experience. The younger Biden was talkative to the point it would inevitably get him in trouble. No more. He is president for a reason. He spoke on behalf of the nation by not speaking, by conveying fury, and did so in a way that showed his love and support for Jews and POC, while keeping the focus on where it should be.

Associated Press: “Since his election loss, Bolsonaro has only addressed the nation twice, to say that the protests are legitimate and encourage them to continue, as long as they don’t prevent people from coming and going.”

“Bolsonaro has not disavowed the recent emergence of violence, either. He has, however, challenged the election results — which the electoral authority’s president said appears aimed at stoking protests.”

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Because of the World Cup, people who haven’t much focused on Qatar have been talking about, and there’s been a cottage industry of articles about how to pronounce it—and about how people are pronouncing it “wrong” or “incorrectly.”

Here’s my modest contribution: There is no one transnationally correct way of pronouncing “Qatar,” just as there is no one correct way of pronouncing “France,” or for that matter of pronouncing the name of the countries we call “Germany,” “Greece,” or “Russia.” Rather, each language has its own norms, which stem both from the sounds common in that language, and from the history of how a name has been adapted into the language. The “correct” way to call a country in a language is just a matter of what is customary in that language.

Thus, “France” is pronounced one way in French (with an “ah”) and another in English (with the more familiar English “a”). In Russian, it’s pronounced “Frahntsiya”; and that’s even apart from the fact that the “r” sounds are different in the three languages. I imagine many other languages have their own pronunciations.

“Russia” is likewise correctly pronounced in English as “Rusha,” though in Russian it’s “Rosiya” (I use italics to indicate emphasis) and in French it’s spelled “Russie” and pronounced “Roosee” (to use English transliteration), though with the different French R and “oo.” (It’s also “La Russie” in French, but that’s a separate matter.) And many countries’ names are completely different in English (or in other languages) than they are in the country’s official language; “Greece” in Greek is “Ellas,” and of course “Germany” in German is “Deutschland.” (Germany has many completely different names in different languages.)

Indeed, “England” in Arabic is, unsurprisingly, not “England,” but apparently “‘iinkiltira,” likely from the French “Angleterre.” I assume Qatari Arabic is the same on this point, though I recognize that there are some differences in how Arabic is spoken in different countries.

Are Qataris “wrong” if they call England “‘iinkiltira” while speaking Arabic? Not at all. Likewise, English speakers aren’t “wrong” when we pronounce “Qatar” in a way that’s normal in English (according to dictionary.com, that’s either kah-tahr or kuh–tahr).

Now if you want to pronounce Qatar the more Arabic way in English, for whatever reason (e.g., to impress people with your familiarity with the country), you should of course feel free to. But there’s nothing wrong in using the English name for a foreign country when speaking English, or the French name when speaking French, or the Arabic name when speaking Arabic.

For more on this as to Ukraine, Kiev, Turkey, and Moscow, see here.

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