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Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris had a lot on his plate Sunday night. He emceed the evening, he sang, he danced, he walked onstage wearing only his underwear and he engaged in some humorous wordplay (“With-her-spoon,” “[Citizenfour subject] Edward Snowden couldn’t be here for some treason”). But he managed to stumble over the names of some of this year’s presenters.
After a complicated introduction, explaining that presenters Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor would be presenting as each other, he tripped over Ejiofor’s name, calling him “Chitiwel Ejiofor” before recognizing his error and correcting himself. Later, Harris referenced his screw-up when he revealed his Oscar predictions, saying that he would mispronounce Ejiofor’s name to bring awareness to the importance of correctly pronouncing the 12 Years a Slave actor’s name.
He later referred to Margot Robbie as “Margot Row-bee,” but that one was when he was half-naked, so perhaps he was a bit flustered.
He also twice gave David Oyelowo‘s name the wrong emphasis, calling him David Oyel-O-wo instead of O-YEL-owo, which is how Brad Pitt taught people to pronounce it at the Palm Springs Film Festival not long ago and how Oyelowo himself and Jimmy Fallon agreed is the correct pronunciation. (Still the actor noted that in Nigeria it’s said with a bit more of an accent, but he advised people not to try that way.)
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