Squeak, there is a se’if in shulchan aruch that says someone who can’t distinguish between an aleph and an ayin should not daven for the amud. The Mishna Brurah comments that nowadays that doesn’t apply anymore, since nobody knows how to pronounce it properly. We do our best.
I was talking to a friend of mine who is a baal midakdek. He told me that he used to try to be makpid on the ayin to pronounce it gutturally, but when he heard someone else doing it he realized how silly it sounded. He continued, “So I no longer say ShmA (deep guttural ayin sound) . I turned to another friend standing next to me and sais, “You heard him. He no longer says ‘Shma’ “. My first friend laughed at my distortion of his words but still gave me a token punch in the arm. I thought it was funny…