3 years ago, Katie Couric became the first female anchor of a weekday evening news show on a network channel, precipitating a flurry of navel-gazing news articles about if ole’ fluff news Katie was ready for the job, if America was ready for Katie, if the women who loved Katie on the Today Show would follow her to the evening news, and just how long CBS would perpetuate this bizarre female anchor experiment before sending Katie to a morning news show, where she can bake whole-wheat scones and preside over mini-fashion shows along with the other smiley girls.
One of these articles took a critical view of Katie’s hard news qualifications. My recollection of this article is sketchy, except that the writer discussed Katie’s admitted use of mnemonics to pronounce all those hard words. For instance, for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Katie used “I’m a Dinner Jacket” [Ah-ma-dinn-e(r)-jahd(ket)]
Perhaps REAL (read: male) news anchors don’t need mnemonics in order nail Arabic pronunciation, but for amateurs like me who can order a fattoush salad in 6 different ways without even garnering a glance of comprehension from the guy at the Lebanese deli, well, Katie’s little trick worked wonders. I, too, could correctly pronounce “Ahmadinejad!”
Except, what always comes out when I refer to the man is “I’m a dinner jacket”, because it’s so fun to say, and because it drives Mr. P crazy. Over time this has been shortened to just plain “dinner jacket,” as in, “I can’t believe Dinner Jacket tampered with the Iranian election! Effing Dinner Jacket!”
So today, in support of all those crazy beautiful Iranian youth who are risking their lives to protest a potentially rigged election, I say… down with Dinner Jacket!
