During a speech about washing machines at the Whirlpool factory in Clyde, Ohio on Thursday, President Donald Trump mispronounced Thailand as Thigh Land.
The president referred to the American multinational manufacturer of home appliances as “the largest washing factory anywhere in the world,” that’s “made in the USA”, and later saying “four or five years ago, this place was a disaster.”
“In 2017, Whirlpool won relief from the ITC once again. Once more, your foreign competitors moved their factories to prevent a level playing field and to avoid liability.”
“Shifting production to Thighland…. and to Vietnam,” he said during the speech, before correcting himself, “Thailand and Vietnam, two places that….[shrugs] I like their leaders very much.”
“They’re very nice to us. Do they take advantage of the United States? Not so much anymore.”
Soon after, Thighland became number one trending topic on Politics on Twitter.
“Speaking of Thighland, just wait until Trump sees Niger on the teleprompter,” one user said.
“Mr President, I believe Thighland is near Uranus.”
“Surprised they have wifi this far up Trump’s colon.”
Dinesh D’Souza, the Indian-born American far-right political provocateur and author, also chimed in on the debate of the pronunciation of Thighland, only to fail miserably:
“I’m highly amused to see supposedly sophisticated media types snickering at @realdonaldtrump for saying ‘Thighland.’ These faux-sophisticates don’t realize Trump’s way of saying it is right. ‘Tai-land’ is the crude lingo of people who have never been to ‘Thighland.’
Let me clarify. I’m not saying ‘Thighland’ is how it is said in the Thai language. The French say “Paree” but that’s not how it is pronounced in English. ‘Thighland,’ not ‘Tai-land,’ is how English speakers around the world say it.”
I’m really enjoying the ‘Thighland’ controversy I seem to have kicked off. Outside of America, every English speaking country, starting with the one that invented the language, pronounces it the way Trump did. ‘Tai-land’ is for frontier people who like to simplify pronunciations.”
And to those statements, Twitter responded to Dinesh with this:
As a website run by "Thigh" people, Dinesh is amazingly and laughably wrong here.
— Thai Enquirer (@ThaiEnquirer) August 7, 2020
Let us introduce you to something Thai people actually say….
5555555555 https://t.co/8lK668fAGH
