Pronouncing Nevada

A nice little piece on Sarah Palin's visit to Carson City, Nevada, from the Las Vegas Review Journal.

But this excerpt left me scratching my head:

And Palin passed one test that many out-of-state
politicians have failed: correctly pronouncing Nevada.

I was wondering how anyone, let alone Americans, could possibly mispronounce 'Nevada'.

I turns out that many non-Nevadan natives pronounce it with a long first 'a', as in 'nev-AH-da'. The resulting sound is apparently offensive to Nevadans. The first 'a' should actually be short, like in "glad".

Which all strikes me as very odd, because I thought Americans always had an inclination towards the short 'a', such as 'path', compared to our 'pAH-th'; 'bath', 'math', etc. So I just assumed the silver state would be 'nev-adda'.

Turns out I was right.

Here's proof.