As Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern is a renowned orator, often speaking passionately and movingly. However, it appears the Prime Minister is at risk of coming unstuck when pronouncing one word. Jeopardise.
Jeopardise means to put in danger and our Prime Minister is in danger of being a serial offender of saying "jeopradise" rather than jeopardise.
Jennifer Hay is a Kiwi pronunciation boffin and she thinks the mispronunciation is caused by hearing American versions of the r sound.
"It's certainly not unique, if you try and search, for example, if you try and spell 'jeprady', you actually find quite a few people using that spelling, even in quite official places, I found news reports, and things using that spelling," Ms Hay told Seven Sharp.
"As a listener, if we speak a variety of New Zealand English that doesn't that doesn't produce that R, that makes it ambiguous, so jeopardy could be 'japrady'.
Ms Ardern is not the only New Zealand Prime Minister to struggle with pronouncing certain words.
Former prime minister John Key had two takes on then-government critic Nicky Hager's surname but he was also a perpetrator and victim.
Australian Labor Party leader Bill Shorten is among those to add an "s" to Mr Key’s surname in a classic example of the plural problem.
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