Carson City, NV April 1, 2010
Unassociated Press

Nevada Tourism Chief Brian Douglas announced that effective today Nevada would be pronounced ‘ne-va-da’ and not ‘ne-va-duh’.  Douglas said that the Spanish pronunciation is recognized worldwide and the local pronunciation is simply wrong.  Douglas went on to say, “We spend way too much time trying to teach the rest of the world how to say Nevada incorrectly and it just makes us look stupid.”

Governor Jim Gibbons was not available for comment because he was at a press conference; however, his spokesperson, Bambi Smith said that the Governor had not been made aware of the decision to change the pronunciation to ‘ne-va-da’, but she didn’t she didn’t see it as much of an issue as the Governor didn’t spend much time in that State.

The impact of the change is not widely understood as there is apparently no legal ramifications regardless how the State’s name is pronounced.  Douglas did say that his staff would be using the correct, Spanish ‘ne-va-da’ in all verbal communications and that training sessions would be held on the correct pronunciation of Nevada, Moana (mo-na), and Harrahs (ha-raz).