Washington Post: "Pardon her French"

For all you NPR (what Xtina affectionatly calls "American Communist Radio") listeners... here's a little tale about an intrepid reporter with a funny sounding surname stuck up in Torino covering the Olympics. Courtesy of Washington Post (via Jim)

At the Turin Olympics, Pardon Her French

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NPR reporter Sylvia Poggioli -- whose very Italian way of pronouncing her last name has delighted listeners for two decades -- uttered a very un- bellissimo word while on the air on "All Things Considered" late Friday.

Speaking live from the Olympic torch-lighting ceremony in Turin, Poggioli thought her connection to the Washington studios had crashed on her: "Oh, [shoot]!"

An end-of-the-black-box- recording-type silence followed. "Sylvia?" asked host Michele Norris . No answer. Quick cutaway to another segment.

Yesterday, Norris told our colleage Paul Farhi that it was "a day of intense technical difficulties" for NPR. "I think she thought the line [to the studio] had dropped. It hadn't."

Poggioli's expletive is a word that often draws the ire of the FCC's indecency cops, but the few dozen people who called or wrote just wanted to know if the broadcaster was okay, said NPR spokeswoman Andi Sporkin . "Someone thought she might be choking on a piece of prosciutto." Good times.