Jan 30 2003

Validation! Thanks, NPR!

Published by beth under Uncategorized

I have to admit, much(most?) of my news intake comes from our local NPR station, WBUR, while I’m on my morning and evening commutes. I far prefer this medium, as there’s much less sensationalism (no bits about woman-who-accidentally-backed-over-own-child-with-riding-mower, or any other gory or freakish tales of woe that you know are just in there to boost ratings; Husband and I have stopped watching many of the local TV news reports for this reason). Plus, I like the commentary.

This morning’s commentary (by Pat Morrison) was particularly wonderful. Mis-User Tax. Check out Today’s Morning Edition for the audio. The description:

Commentator Pat Morrison proposes a “mis-user fee” as a new way for the federal government to raise revenue. It would levy a fine on politicians and Washington pundits who misuse American English.”

A section of this completely validated my feelings of annoyance toward the recent State of the Union address (I won’t get into any of my political views, just this one nit-picky peeve).

Now, I don’t claim to have a particularly large vocabulary or be terribly well-versed in nuances of the English language (sorry, Dad), but I thought I knew how one is to pronounce the word “nuclear.”. I caught the first half or so of the SotU, and could have sworn I heard POTUS say “nucular.” Multiple times. Erm. Well, maybe I misheard. Or, could it be that I didn’t know that there was an alternate, acceptible, pronunciation (yeah, so I scored higher than I should have on recent verbal GRE scores [*preen*] - that just proves that I studied a bit about how to guess accurately when one doesn’t know what the heck the words mean, which was most definitely the case for me. [Thank you, Kaplan CD!] I still have significant doubts when it comes to my spelling and vocabulary.) ?

Ha, no! Indeed, he was mispronouncing “nuclear” - and Morrison suggests a fine of $1k per flub (hah! again!). (pull-quotes available later, as soon as I can get my grubby little hands on the transcript)
[update: 31Jan]

Then there’s the major-league ear offender, the bane of English teachers everywhere ‘nuclear,’ (pronounced NEW-ku-ler) instead of ‘nuclear’ (pronounced NEW-clear). Never mind that both presidents Bush and Carter use it; it’s wrong, and at a thousand dollars per screw-up, the bucks could pile up faster than Saddam’s empty warheads.

Had I gone directly to the dictionary I would have also found my answer:

Usage Note: The pronunciation (nky-lr), which is generally considered incorrect, is an example of how a familiar phonological pattern can influence an unfamiliar one. The usual pronunciation of the final two syllables of this word is (-kl-r), but this sequence of sounds is rare in English. Much more common is the similar sequence (-ky-lr), which occurs in words like particular, circular, spectacular, and in many scientific words like molecular, ocular, and vascular.

So, if Bush isn’t up on his pronounciations, why the heck didn’t someone on his staff correct him before the public address ??

Bah. Bartlet wouldn’t have made that mistake. (aside: Husband suggested, after listening to a speech a month or two ago, that Presidential candidate John Kerry has the same sort of speech patterns that Pres. Bartlet does on West Wing. Smart strategy, if intentional.)

Ok, I lied. I am going to get into another issue I have over the SotU address. From the transcript:

During the last two years, we have seen what can be accomplished when we work together. To lift the standards of our public schools, we achieved historic education reform — which must now be carried out in every school and in every classroom, so that every child in America can read and learn and succeed in life.

This made me snort. Historic education reform, perhaps - if by reform you mean “decrease funding so some schools (Portland, OR) need to cut back on the length of the school year or other school systems (this one in Indiana, but I’ve heard of many elsewhere, including ME and MA) must raise taxes or lay off teachers.”

How the heck is there supposed to be any education reform, something that’s presumably meant to provide a better education to more students, when state budgets are such that quality teachers have to be let go, class sizes are overly large (40 kids in English?!?!), or taxpayers are asked/required to hand over more money??

Color me OUTRAGED.

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