How do you pronounce "Iraq"? Specifically, how do you pronounce the last syllable? Is it "Rack" or something closer to "Rock"? (If you pronounce the vowel like the a in "father", I'll put you on the "Rock" team -- I think that's closer to the short "o" than to the short "a".)
George W. Bush, as we know, says "Rack." I was just thinking that people used to pronounce it differently before he became President. Sure enough, Bill Clinton said "Rock." Linguist Geoff Nunberg avers that "Rock" is slightly closer to the correct pronunciation (he says it's rawq). My sense is that "Rack" is much more common in the media today, though I only rarely watch TV, so I could be wrong.
I'm curious to see how this transition took place. It'd be really interesting if the Fox News people switched their pronunciation to cover Bush, and the rest of the media followed suit.
