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By now last week’s debate between the Democratic presidential candidates has been thoroughly digested and picked apart by pundits across the country. But here’s one final observation you won’t hear outside the state: All this attention from the national candidates and the press (along with the success of the Wolf Pack basketball program in recent years) is finally teaching the rest of the country how to pronounce the name of our state.

This is a very recent development. A lot of us born here have spent our lives trying to accomplish this. Hearing someone say Neh-vah-dah grates on the Nevada ear like fingernails on a blackboard. San Fran ciscans enduring references to “Frisco” and Oregonians long tired of “Or –ree-gone” understand. .Politicians have been late to learn.

Four years ago, President Bush uttered “Neh-vah-dah” at an early campaign appearance in Las Vegas . A reporter asked Guy Rocha of our State Archives about the pronunciation. Guy’s observation that most of us who live here don’t say it that way was picked up by the national press, taken out of context, truncated and ultimately was interpreted as a slam on the president, which was hardly his intent. He got a ton of hate mail from all over the country….some of which he later shared with me. To summarize, most of it called Guy names I won't repeat here and said the rest of us were a bunch of ignorant hicks who didn’t even know how to correctly pronounce our crummy little state’s name…a claim backed by  snotty references to their own vast knowledge of the language gained in high school Spanish class.

This coming from people who were living in and, we can assume, correctly pronouncing states like “Flor-ee-dah”, “Coh-loh-rah-doh”, ”Ah-ree-zho-nah” and “New Meh-hee-coh,” Would the president answer to being a former governor of “Tay-hahs?” I don't think so. { An aside here. Arnold should get a pass on this issue. The governator’s Austrian accented “Cal-ee-for-nee-ah” may be a favorite of comic impressionists, but actually it may be closer to the original Spanish and after all, he does come by it naturally.}

The president learned quickly, even turning the misstep into a joke to his advantage in subsequent appearances. In a way he and others really weren’t to blame, but their handlers were. It’s like making you’re sure your candidate gets the mayor’s wife’s name right at a campaign stop. Retail Politics 101. If you come asking for our vote, you should at least get the name of the state right. 

Thankfully, four years later, with most making repeated trips here, the candidates and their campaigns are getting it right. With an occasional slip (see: George Stephanopoulos at the Carson City Democratic Forum last February) even the national press is slowly catching on. Now if we could just get some of them to describe the state and our caucus without the gaming cliches.