Fiber Babble: Pronounce-iation

Pronounce-iation

July 02, 2007

I used to be a member of the Grammar Police. Anybody who has read more than one sentence of this blog can realize that I've now gotten over myself.

There are a few things, however, that would stick in my craw - if I knew what a craw was:

Nuclear - Yes, the Commander-In-Chief has come up with so many ways to mispronounce this one that it's become a running joke. This is one of the words whose mispronunciation gives me a tic in my right eye. Not New-kew-lur. NEW-KLEE-ER. Just like it's spelled, folks. Dudes, even Larry the Cable Guy says it correctly, without even stumbling. How hard can it be?

Realtor - Another tic-inducing word. REE-UL-TOR(ter). Ree-li-ter? I just can't fathom where that extra 'i' comes from. Especially when one who actually holds the title can't get it right. I think there should be some sort of verbal test before someone gets their realtor's license - If you can't say it correctly, you don't get to be one.

Recently, a (minor) newcomer has been added to the list. From watching newscasts in hotels across the country, I've come to the conclusion that anchorpersons undergo some sort of training to rid themselves of easily identifiable "accents". An alarming (to me) trend I'm hearing lately is the use of the word "EE-legal", as in "EE-legal search and seizure". I don't hear "EE-legitimate claim" or "Undisclosed EELness". What's up with EE-legal?

Other minor tics come from hearing "towards" and "irregardless". Those words don't exist. Well, actually they do exist now in some dictionaries, but only because they are so widely misused that they've made into the wimpy-ass dictionaries that include un-words because they're so often used these days. Look up irregardless. In the four dictionaries on Mr. W's desk, the definition is "regardless". Duh.

Mr. W. and I frequently have discussions about the pronunciation of certain words. One of the things that we've discovered is that for people who read as much as we do (and have done since before entering pre-school), we often read and extrapolate the meaning of words without having heard them pronounced. His favorite related story is about asking someone at a library or bookstore for some book that had the word "paradigm" in the title. He found out later that he had unbelievably mangled the pronunciation of that one!

Two things that he says are "irregardless" (apparently he thinks that little tic is cute on me or something) and "vudge". Yes, VUDGE. It's that rich chocolate stuff that people eat, frequently at Christmastime. He says First and Funny and Four, so it's not a physical limitation. Every time he says Vudge I say, "Vuck you". After all these years, he still hasn't changed. Oh, well. At least he could qualify to be a realtor in this nuclear age...

Labels: babble

permalink

3 Comments:

At 7/04/2007 10:33 AM,

Annie Babbled Back:

How about hair-us-ment so that those same anchor persons don't have to say any form of the word ass on television. It's pronounced huh-rass-ment people! Sheesh. We have the same tick.

At 7/06/2007 12:35 AM,

Anji Babbled Back:

I think we have to learn to ignore these things; language moves so quickly now. My husband corrects my pronuciation - he had a top private school education and has 'no accent'. Me, I'm a commoner.Good job I don't take him seriously - we get along fine.

At 7/02/2008 8:14 AM,

Tonya Ricucci Babbled Back:

I wince every time my Dad says something about the people who live in Italy - the EYE-talians. he does the newkular too. eek. had a friend from Alabama who pronounced ambulance as amble-ance.