Last night, Seth Meyers once again apologized for an alleged language mistake. Some viewers had apparently complained about him mispronouncing the name of the children's book elephant Babar as "Buh-BAR", while the "correct" pronunciation is supposedly "Bah-BAR". I checked a recent animated version of Babar and heard the latter pronunciation, but I'm sure I always heard the former pronunciation when I was a child. Meyers first referred to Babar in connection with the news about the "cancellation" of several Dr. Seuss books – and ironically, Ted Geisel himself originally pronounced "Seuss" (his mother's maiden name) to rhyme with "voice" and only later accepted the "loose" mispronunciation because it rhymed with "Mother Goose". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 5 March 2021)
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