Ever since Hillary Clinton failed to correctly pronounce the name of Russian president Dmitri Medvedev (“Medvuh.. vuh-devah, whatever”) during that Ohio debate, I’ve been wondering how to say it myself. And now longtime Herald Tribune and N.Y. Times foreign correspondent Serge Schemann has written a piece that includes a phonetic spelling (courtesy of Voice of America): “mehd-V(y)EHD-yehf.” Say it over and over (I’ve done it about 20 times now) and it gradually begins to feel half-negotiable.

March 11, 2008by Jeffrey Wells13 Comments