[thechat] Chile's tennis fighting for the medals

[javier velasco]

I tend to agree that the sports commentators and TV hosts I've seen here 
tend to be remarkably stupid, but the pronounciation thing is a cultural 
issue I guess: I've seen here that people just accomodate words to 
whatever fits their customs. I'm not saying this is wrong, it's just the 
way they do it. In Chile, on the other hand, we have the (somewhat 
silly) tradition of making an effort of pronouncing european-language 
(mostly english) words as close as possible as they are supposed to, 
while our neighbor country, Argentina, always adapts their sound and 
accent to their own fit.

In the end, they got the Gold in doubles (on friday, when Fernando 
played 7 hours), and got Bronze and Gold in singles (a 5 hour match, 
completing 22hours and 25 minutes playing olympic tennis in a single 
week), and gave Chile the first gold medals ever, everybody's crazy down 
there with this, there's a cute article on a newspaper that raises Nico 
to glory.
http://www.lun.com/deportes/Tenis/detalle_noticia.asp?cuerpo=701&seccion=806&subseccion=902&idnoticia=C382219114151042

and a second piece that notes some of the amazed comments in the US's 
press, including the silver medallist
http://www.lun.com/deportes/Tenis/detalle_noticia.asp?cuerpo=701&seccion=806&subseccion=902&idnoticia=C382219442827546

Bob Davis wrote:

>
> On Aug 22, 2004, at 5:34 AM, Madhu Menon wrote:
>
>> At 05:47 20/08/2004, javier velasco wrote:
>>
>>> I've noticed that there hasn't been any olympic talk 'round here, at 
>>> least not lately.
>>
>>
>> I want to know why the American commentator pronounces Chile as 
>> "chilli" :)
>>
>
> He's hungry?
>
>
> Here's a question.
>
> How many sports commentators does it take to re-shingle a roof?
>
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> It all depends on how thinly you slice them...