#80443
09/13/2002 3:10 AM
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enthusiast
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W's speech at the UN seemed rather more forceful and focused than some of the rambling we've heard from him of late. But wouldn't you think someone would tell him how to pronounce nuclear? I counted seven nu-cu-leurs in less than five minutes. Fifty years ago everyone was razzing Ike for saying it that way.
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#80444
09/13/2002 6:32 AM
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I counted seven nu-cu-leurs in less than five minutes
I was beginning to think it must be the American way of spelling the word, rather like aluminum instead of aluminium. Secketary instead of secretary is another common pronunciation error, with the "a" almost swallowed, as in Secket'ry of State.
dxb.
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#80445
09/13/2002 10:16 AM
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Fifty years ago everyone was razzing Ike for saying it that way.
Fifty years and we still haven't gotten into y'all's thick skulls.
This is the leader of the free world we're talkin about here. Y'all have no choice but to follow him. Congerss doesn't *need to approve.
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#80446
09/13/2002 11:07 AM
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old hand
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Fifty years ago everyone was razzing Ike for saying it that way.
Trust me, many people are secretly razzing Dubya for it. I don't like it much either. But if you get Faldage too involved in this discussion you'll get a lesson on bird and brid, most likely.
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#80447
09/13/2002 12:28 PM
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Meanwhile, a poem orchestrated by one Richard Thompson (I think he writes for the Washington Post) from real-live true documented Dubyaisms: http://www.bushtimes.com/cgi-bin/iowa/news/record.html?record=115PS slithy, we were groaning as we counted the nu-cu-lers, too...
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#80448
09/13/2002 12:38 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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http://angli02.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/data/MAVENS.htmlWell this whole thing goes back to the debate over prescriptive ve descriptive "rules" of language. While it may be technically correct to pronounce "nuclear," many people obviously find "NOOK-u-lar" to roll off the tongue more easily. Since there is no lack of understanding on the listener's part, I don't see the problem, other than that heads of state are generally expected to speak more formally.
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#80449
09/13/2002 1:10 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Some words just don't roll off the tongue right. When I was admitting physician
I used to have patients request referral to Chief of UnClear medicine.
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#80450
09/13/2002 2:22 PM
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enthusiast
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Alex, I understand your point and agree with much of the MAVENS essay. But there's a vast difference between kowtowing to obsolete prescriptive habits and simply avoiding messy speech. Consider particularly the tendency of so many members of our Congress to rant about so-sha-curity or the prezh-u-nida-states. I find it refreshing to listen to British politicians, most of whom can at least articulate. Now and then there's a fine speaker in US politics (e.g. Barbara Jordan) but by and large they're pretty sloppy. Could it be an intentional thing based on regionalism? After all, they're depending on the whim of voters from back home, who tend to, like, talk the same way.
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#80451
09/13/2002 2:54 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Slithy, you may well have a point. In Britain it also happens that politicians and particularly trade union leaders who normally speak "standard English" will adopt a regional accent or even slovenly speech for the benefit of the audience they actually wish to impress - not necessarily the one they appear to be addressing! The late Frank Cousins, a trade union leader, was notorious for this.
dxb.
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#80452
09/13/2002 4:27 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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In reply to:
Could it be an intentional thing based on regionalism? After all, they're depending on the whim of voters from back home, who tend to, like, talk the same way.
Well that could be the case. There's definitely an anti-intellectual tradition in the U.S. and politicians don't want to come off as "eggheads." Even Bill Clinton, who was a Rhoades Scholar, played up an image of a good ol' boy, and the press was happy to help. I think Americans in general like a politician who comes across as strong, smart but not too fancy-schmancy, a cut-the-bullcrap sort of person. I'm not English, so I can't speak for them, but I think they might appreciate fine oration more than we do on this side of the pond. Winston Churchill, for example, could talk real good...
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#80453
09/13/2002 5:40 PM
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get Faldage too involved in this discussion you'll get a lesson on bird and brid
In the case of nucular I'm more likely to bring up the example of Hercules and Herakles but then some nit-picker would probably complain that this should go in Words from classical mythology.
Nucular has a couple of things going for it. One is the large number of scientific words that end in -ular, e.g., molecular, cellular, etc., to act as models. The only other common word that ends in -clear is clear itself (and derivative words such as unclear). The other thing is that there is a standard linguistic process that I don't remember enough about to expound upon in any detail here but which perhaps one of our linguists could. It is probably the same thing that turned the Greek Herakles into the Latin Hercules.
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#80454
09/13/2002 5:54 PM
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but then some nit-picker would probably complain
must... resist... temptation...
standard linguistic process
metathesis? Like brid -> bird?
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#80455
09/13/2002 6:14 PM
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brid -> birdYeahbut©, I think there's something specific to the CL thang that makes it special. This site http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html points out that British and Australians find the American repetition of the [u] between the [k] and [l] quaintly amusing. Good reason [to] get it right.Ut si!
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#80457
09/13/2002 6:59 PM
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There's also something called Attraction that plays a role in nucular. If it were just metathesis it would come out something like nukelar. Attraction causes a vowel change to match a nearby vowel, giving us nucular (although it is usually pronounced nucyular).
Just googling metathesis nucular gives a small but interesting group of sites.
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#80458
09/13/2002 7:58 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The easiest way to remind yourself to pronounce it correctly is to remember that it sounds like "new clear." By the way there was an album in 1980 by a band called The Vapors called "New Clear Days" which contained the song "Turning Japanese."
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#80459
09/13/2002 9:12 PM
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Posts: 11,072 Likes: 2
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I'm afraid this is another of a too-large number of degradations of the language that have evolved despite all efforts. Chalk it up next to Febyooary, liberry, between you and I, and split infinitives.
Correcting these misusages is an unrewarding, nay a thankless task, and in the sense of choosing your battles may be not worth our aggravation. The best I've been able to come up with (see? preposition-at-end-of-sentence was another one one hundred years ago, wasn't it?) is to lead by example and choose my own words with care.
Still, it's frustrating to be "right" but smothered by the rest of 'em. Ain't it?
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#80460
09/13/2002 9:25 PM
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Let me know whether I'm incorrect in what I've learned--especially since I've never studied Latin--but what I heard an English professor state was it was ridiculous not to split the infinitive when a writer wanted to get the adverb closer to the verb itself for emphasis. The professor's reasoning was that the Latin infinitive was a single word, not two as are English infinitives. By forcing the adverb to either precede or follow the two-word English infinitive, force was lost and awkwardness was often the only gain. He gave us a long list of sentences in which the two-word infinitive had not been split and companion sentences in which the adverb was nestled up right against the root verb after the "to." I thought his was a point well-taken.
WW
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#80461
09/14/2002 4:14 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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I guess the thing about this use of nucular by Dubya that most puzzles and amazes me is that his many advisors must all say it the same way; otherwise one of them would have gently corrected him.
I personally consider the mispronunciation of nuclear as a sign of lack of education. And if Dubya's been idificated and still does it it's a sign of stupidity. Ignorance can be cured, stupidity goes all the way to the bone.
TEd
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#80462
09/14/2002 4:26 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Smart courtiers do not correct the King. That's why we call London's river the Tems. Edit: Peccavi. The above appears to be a canard. No mention of it in AHD http://www.bartleby.com/61/11/T0141100.html
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#80463
09/14/2002 6:12 PM
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The professor's reasoning was that the Latin infinitive was a single word, not two as are English infinitives.
WW, you learned right. It was one of those Victorian thangs. I'll let my betters, tsuwm, Faldage and maverick (and who knows who-all else?), direct you to the right place but I think you'll find this in Pinkerton's The Language Instinct, which somebody cited somewhere in some forum (I'm getting too old to be participating in four bulletin boards... I can never remember who did what to whom).
And then again, you could always consult William Safire.
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#80464
09/14/2002 6:16 PM
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Smart courtiers do not correct the King. That's why we call London's river the Tems.
I alwaays wondered why, Dr Bill. Can you substantiate and attribute? One of those Hanover guys?
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#80465
09/14/2002 6:24 PM
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Posts: 13,858
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Dear AS: my face is red. I remember reading that because the first Hanoverian,
George I spoke no English, he pronounced name of river auf Deutsch. and sycophant
courtiers adopted his pronunciation. But AHD says the "h" in the name was
introduced by spurious scholarship, and pronunciation therefore aways was "Tems".
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#80466
09/15/2002 12:32 PM
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Ignorance can be cured, stupidity goes all the way to the bone.
Dwight David Eisenhower. James Earl Carter.
Ignorant or stupid?
This is a sample of natural linguistic change. It's OK if it was done a couple hundred years ago but heaven forfend that it happen right before your eyes. No problem using the accusative/dative plural in the singular nominative in the second person as long as the ungrammatical usage was established as "correct" 400 hundred years ago but not today in the third person. It's OK to pronounce knight as though it were spelled nite but not nuclear as though it were spelled nucular.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Y'all prescriptivists ain' got no respeck for the language. It's fine as long as it does what you want it to do, but you can't take it on its own terms.
Harrumph®!
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#80467
09/15/2002 5:09 PM
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 475
addict
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addict
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duck tape duct tape Ducks very rarely need taping though you may not know that ducts always do—to keep air from escaping through the cracks in them. , i have always called this gaffer tape or duck tape, the main brand name for gaffer tape in England
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#80468
09/15/2002 8:22 PM
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Posts: 742
old hand
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: Y'all prescriptivists ain' got no respeck for the language.
And I've said it before and will say it again: we're all prescriptivists, even you. It's just a matter of degree. One simply needs to be prepared to admit that one has one's own set of prescriptivists taboos.
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#80469
09/15/2002 9:11 PM
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Prescriptivists are indeed condemned to piss against the tide. But patient teaching
of what is beautiful and what is ugly in language use ought slacken the tide a bit.
We can't lick the slobs, but we don't have to join them. Like, whatever.
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#80470
09/15/2002 9:20 PM
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One simply needs to be prepared to admit that one has one's own set of prescriptivists taboos.
Not if yer already prepared to laugh at the admition before actually® 'doing so'.
Would you (have me) believe that the least prescriptive of *us approaches the ununderstandable?
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#80471
09/15/2002 9:26 PM
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old hand
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In reply to:
Not if yer already prepared to laugh at the admition before actually® 'doing so'.
Would you (have me) believe that the least prescriptive of *us approaches the ununderstandable?
You, sir, are one of the least benightedly unintelligent life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.
RIP DNA
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#80472
09/15/2002 10:24 PM
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we're all prescriptivists, even you
As we are all descriptivists. If we work on that assumption we strip all meaning from the words and communication is destroyed more surely than can be done with a few like, y'knows.
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#80473
09/16/2002 12:03 AM
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>Like, whatever.
You say a lot of humorous things, Dr. Bill, and those two words may be the funniest you've ever posted here.
TEd
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#80474
09/16/2002 12:34 AM
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The prescriptivist fallacy is that what the descriptivists describe has no rules.
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#80475
09/16/2002 1:20 AM
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old hand
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Like, whatever. ~ Dr Bill You say a lot of humorous things, Dr. Bill, and those two words may be the funniest you've ever posted here. ~ TEd Like, you know, I agree TEddy-O, it's just a loud crying shame that the good doc said them cool words the one, single, onliest time that Faldage was absolutely right. ->  <- mw
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#80476
09/16/2002 10:49 AM
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veteran
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"And if Dubya's been idificated and still does it it's a sign of stupidity." Maybe. "Educated" people tried for years to get me to change my ignorant habit of referring to my home town as Loo-uh-vul. It never worked. They gave all kinds of hints that I wasn't quite up to snuff, but none of them ever had the guts to say it to my face. More to the point, while one of my best friends, a truly brilliant fellow, knows the one and only correct pronunciation and nevertheless insists on saying noo-cyu-lar, it wouldn't even occur to me to think of him as either ignorant or stupid. http://wingedsphere.com/ftv/ftv_home.htm Dean Z is the short-haired guy on the left. I'd like to educate him - I only wish I were qualified. All of this is not of course to say that I don't feel a bit jealous that the Brits have someone so articulate, sincere, thoughtful, and, well, just plain smart, as Tony Blair. "Ignorance can be cured, stupidity goes all the way to the bone." I've heard that too. In fact, I don't think ignorance is such a bad thing at all, as everyone I've ever met possessed it to some degree. I'm not sure how it ever became a put-down. k
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#80477
09/16/2002 11:53 AM
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Prescriptivism, descriptivism, piss-against-the-wallitism...
Dubya sounds like a dunce saying nukyooler.
I had a principal long ago who always said, "pacific" instead of "specific." He was a really sweet guy--and we teachers used to chuckle everytime he said "pacific" meaning "specific." I doubt any of us would have corrected him because of the big fish/small pond environment. Besides, we liked him.
But with Dubya it's different. Very big fish; very big pond...memories of someone out there having misspelled the very basic potato.
And it ain't a big deal to learn how to pronounce nuclear. Hasn't each of us here thought some word somewhere was pronounced a certain way only to learn later we were incorrect? And was it a big deal to plug in the correct pronunication? No. No big deal. But everytime Dubya gets in front of a TV camera, he's reaching a huge audience--and his nukyooler falls upon the ears of either wincing know-better's or innocents who might imitate him. If he doesn't care about refining his use of the language, then he sets no example. He shows that sloppiness is tolerable, he shows that there is no need to be curious about the progression of the language, he shows that there is no need to improve one's command of the language, and he makes me (a guppy in a shot glass) just plain mad.
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#80478
09/16/2002 1:05 PM
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Posts: 320
enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Amen, Theresa! Descriptivism may have its defenders, but it can be a slippery slope.
"Now heaven knows
Anything goes."
~~Cole Porter
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#80479
09/16/2002 1:27 PM
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veteran
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My understanding is that Quayle was given a flashcard with a misspelled word on it. Why isn't anyone making fun of teachers (who presumably made the card in the first place)? At best, it's only a half-truth. This story goes in the same category as the one about Gore claiming he invented the Internet.
It would be nice if all of our statesmen were linguaphiles, but so far as I'm aware it's not a prerequisite for the position. Moreover, a person can be very well aware of "THE correct" pronunciation and neverthess feel that the word sounds funny and unnatural when said that way.
I'm strongly ambivalent in these situations. On the one hand, when people don't speak in the way I think they should speak, I sometimes find it extremely grating. OTOH, having been judged stupid on numerous occasions based on my vocabulary or my accent (or, I know this is hard to believe, but there are people who will valuate people's intelligence based on their perceptions of their political opinions), I try (I mean I really try) to force myself not to judge the intelligence or worth of people because of their habits of speech.
k
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#80480
09/16/2002 1:31 PM
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innocents who might imitate him
The history of language is writ by innocents imitating.
a slippery slope
Note to attackers of the non-syllogistic use of the phrase begging the question:
Slippery Slope is also the name of a logical fallacy.
One can be a descriptivist without defending or condoning sloppy usage, as one can be a prescriptivist and practice sloppy usage. Pronunciation shift is a part of language; discounting the contributions of someone whose usages do not match one's own only limits the holder of these prejudices.
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#80481
09/16/2002 1:42 PM
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Prescriptivism is a dirty word, but must we cheerfully join the idiots who can't tell
one tenth from nine tenths? (good old decimate).
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#80482
09/16/2002 1:48 PM
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By the original meaning of the word one tenth were killed outright and nine tenths were shipped of to other legions. None were left in situ. A legion that was decimated had no one left in it.
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