E-man-uate Intelligence, Ed

Like an overmatched offensive lineman haplessly striving to stave off the onslaughts of a Pro Bowl defensive end, Ed Schultz's heroic but unsuccessful struggles with the English language continue.

A couple weeks ago, fellow NewsBuster Jack Coleman hilariously documented Schultz's penchant for calling others "stupid"—while regularly making a mash of our mother tongue.

On his MSNBC show this evening, Schultz once again fought the good linguistic fight but was in way over his head.  This time, his indomitable opponent was the word "emanate."  The rascally verb turned up in a HuffPo blog Ed was quoting. Speaking with Drew Westen, the blog's author, Schultz essayed three different pronunciations, including "e-man-uate," without ever hitting on the correct one.  Here's Ed, with my phonetic spelling of his various failed assaults on Mt. Emanate.

ED SCHULTZ: This blog, on Huffington Post, really caught a lot of people's attention, including mine.  Quote: "Obama, like so many Democrats in Congress, has fallen prey to the conventional Democratic strategic wisdom: that the way to win the center is to tack to the center. But it doesn't work that way.  You want to win the center?  E-man-uate strength. E-e, e-may-a-nate conviction.  Lead like you know where you're going.

A bit later, Ed again gave it the old college try.  Schultz seemed to have decided that if he couldn't pronounce "emanate," he would opt for the correct pronounciation of another word, eminent.

SCHULTZ: You say eminent strength, eminent conviction. Do you think the president doesn't have either one of those?

Ed, for easy reference, here's a handy audio pronunciation guide for "emanate."

We all make mistakes, but perhaps in the future Schultz might be not so quick to call others "stupid."