Donald Trump incorrectly tells Nevadans how to correctly pronounce the name of their state

(Image credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

published 6 October 2016

Nevadans, please let native New Yorker Donald Trump explain to you how you've been pronouncing the name of your own state wrong this whole time.

You see, in Trump's gilded world, it's not actually "Ne-VA-da," as common knowledge dictates, but rather, "Neh-VAH-da." While speaking to a crowd in Reno on Wednesday, the Republican nominee thought it was a good time to segue from talking about overdose deaths to lecturing people about their pronunciation skills. "Heroin overdoses are surging, and meth overdoses, in Neh-VAH-da. Neh-VAAAAHHH-daaaa," he repeated dramatically. "When I came out here, I said, nobody says it the other way. It has to be Neh-VAH-da, right?"

With a laugh, Trump continued, "If you don't say it correctly, it didn't happen to me, but it happened to a friend of mine, he was killed." A Trump campaign source told Jon Ralston that Trump was only kidding around, and of course he knows he was pronouncing it wrong (in the beginning of the video below, it does sound like he says "Ne-VA-da"). Sen. Harry Reid (D-Ne-VA-da) does not buy this, telling BuzzFeed News, "If Donald Trump wants to come down from the penthouse his daddy bought him to lecture us on how to say Nevada, he could at least pronounce it correctly. Instead, Trump told us we pronounce the name of our state wrong. ... I have news for Donald: It's pronounced Ne-VA-da..." Join Trump for his next elocution lesson, when he schools the good people of Ore-GONE. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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