Baldacci

Sorry, I forgot to provide the link to David Baldacci's website: http://www.davidbaldacci.com/web/content/blogsection/3/94/ .

David Baldacci is the governor's cousin.

It's best just to stick with Anglicising foreign words. While you may feel smug that you know the correct Spanish pronunciation for Costa Rica, you will look just as stupid yourself when stuff up Zheleznodorozhny or Kamensk-Shakhtinsky or Yeghegnadzor or Kirkjubæjarklaustur or Öndörkhaan or Whangamomona.

Go Lazar go.

Hey Lazar,
I might have taken how to pronounce his name wrongly. Ever since our conversation, and I have been consciously trying to pronounce it as "ball" and then "dacci."
Here is how I originally approached it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gsFCg387P0&feature=related

I've always heard it pronounced Coast-a Rica, anyway, with a long O.

And lots of English-speaking people have non-English names that have been wrestled into semi-English pronunciation, like me. I'm sure my relatives abroad would be horrified at how I'm pronouncing it, but they live there and I live here, so that's how it goes. The same thing happens in reverse as well, and between other languages.

>>I've always heard it pronounced Coast-a Rica, anyway, with a long O.<<

Same here, as [kʰosʲtʲəːˈʁikə(ː)]~[kʰosʲːəːˈʁikə(ː)].