At the risk of proving my curmudgeonly nature, I often call attention to spelling errors on these boards. One reason I consider correct spelling important is that most of us acquire a sizeable portion of our vocabulary from the written word, without necessarily ever hearing the word spoken and pronounced correctly. In the news covering the mine disaster yesterday, Matt Lauer pronounced the word "jubilation" as jubulation. This morning Katie Couric pronounced the same word as "joob you lation" also . I attribute this frequent mispronunciation to the all too common misspelling of the word.
A second example of the same problem is the somewhat archaic word "kibosh". The word has been used by talking heads on TV quite often lately. Reading an unfamiliar word from a script often results in the incorrect ki.bosh accent on the 'bosh'. The correct pronunciation is KY BOSH, accent on the KY. I'm sure that the president's inability to pronounce the word 'nuclear', and having remained un-corrected for the past five or six years doesn't help. ****************************************************************** 01-05-06, 07:06 PM Professor At least the president's mispronunciation of nuclear has been so often lampooned that public awareness about it has been raised. Jubilation invokes a similar mechanism of mispronunciation. Some years ago there was a lot of buzz about the verb & noun harass & harassment (i.e., which syllable is stressed -- evidently either is correct). I must admit that I thought kibosh was accented on the 2nd syllable because that's how I've always heard it pronounced.
Once again, this raises the larger issue of whether to tolerate "mistakes" in spelling, pronunciation, and usage that in the short term are regarded as ignorant, but in the long term bring about the evolution of the language itself. Shakespeare and Chaucer seem awfully weird to our modern eyes and ears, but isn't it we moderns who are "abusing" the English of those writers' respective times?
Somehow I hope that 100 years from now it's still pronounced "NUKE-lee-er" instead of "NUKE-yoo-ler." It's harder for me to say just exactly why I care!
01-05-06, 07:32 PM frankvan The fact that someone of your generation, a mere stripling, can say "that's the way I've always heard it pronounced", is precisely why I feel obliged to sound the alarm. How much psychological damage will result from the confusion that results, when the meaning of words are completely lost and misunderstandings are rampant? When we all start to sound like the president? Should laissez faire be excused as evolution of the language, dude? It's hard enough to understand our children when we speak the same basic language.
01-05-06, 09:06 PM jusork
quote: Originally posted by frankvan: The fact that someone of your generation, a mere stripling, can say "that's the way I've always heard it pronounced", is precisely why I feel obliged to sound the alarm. How much psychological damage will result from the confusion that results, when the meaning of words are completely lost and misunderstandings are rampant?
Is pronunciation really that integral to the ability to express oneself? I would think we could use more work on being able to express ourselves itself (mostly because it's such an important aspect for language). Do you think it's not as much of a problem as pronunciation? Wouldn't not knowing what words mean be more detrimental than not being able to pronounce the word?
01-06-06, 08:53 AM frankvan I wouldn't try to quantify the importance of pronunciation as compared to any other aspect of communication. If we confine our exchange of thoughts and opinions to e-mails and instant messaging we need never concern ourselves with pronunciation. On the other hand we probably rely on the the spoken word, cel-phones, etc. more than any other method. Inability to spell a word correctly can, in my opinion, result in mispronounced reading of the script, for example. At my age I have witnessed the gradual deterioration of the spoken and written use of language in this country, and I feel a duty to call attention to instances as tactfully as I can. Think how Katie Couric, or Matt Lauer would feel embarrassed the day after broadcasting on National Television "jew-bew-lay-shun", possibly because of careless reading on their part, or careless spelling on the part of the typist who wrote the script. As an aspiring author (?), I think you especially could appreciate the importance of complete command of the words, spelling, meaning, pronunciation, connotation, even etymology.
01-06-06, 09:48 AM coldfuse Do George Bush and Jimmy Carter simply have trouble pronouncing "nuclear?" I always wondered why Carter, a nuclear engineer in the United States Navy, also pronounces the word "nook-you-ler."
01-06-06, 12:33 PM juanruiz I love that "mispronounciations" site; it contains examples of all the common linguistic developments: haplology, metathesis, sincope, assimilation, dissimilation, folk etymology. It's great!
01-06-06, 12:52 PM frankvan Great links, 'fuse. Convinces me I'm not crazy after all. I can't help noticing that neither one mentioned "kibosh" though. For some reason it seems to be making a come-back.
01-06-06, 01:07 PM juanruiz I often wonder if people who say "It's a doggy-dog world" have a clue as to it's meaning? 01-06-06, 01:19 PM coldfuse Are you familiar with the expression "six of one, a half dozen of the other" to compare things that are similar?
A colleague of many years used to shorten this as "six to one." I once asked him if it was 12:54.
01-06-06, 01:37 PM DorianGreyed Fuse, that took me a minute or so to get. Roll Eyes
"For all intensive purposes" is another that has replaced the original phrase for many.
I assume that most of the Ameicans here have seen the commercial in which the man thinks he gets "French benefits" from his company.
01-06-06, 02:44 PM frankvan Wow, haplology, metathesis, syncope You can certainly learn a lot on answerpool. And I must have heard that doggy-dog world hundreds of time without realizing that could have been what they were, in fact, saying. I've learned more English (should that be capitalized?) from Juan and the late Maiku than I ever learned in school or college.
01-06-06, 03:04 PM jusork
quote: Originally posted by frankvan: I wouldn't try to quantify the importance of pronunciation as compared to any other aspect of communication. If we confine our exchange of thoughts and opinions to e-mails and instant messaging we need never concern ourselves with pronunciation. On the other hand we probably rely on the the spoken word, cel-phones, etc. more than any other method. Inability to spell a word correctly can, in my opinion, result in mispronounced reading of the script, for example. At my age I have witnessed the gradual deterioration of the spoken and written use of language in this country, and I feel a duty to call attention to instances as tactfully as I can. Think how Katie Couric, or Matt Lauer would feel embarrassed the day after broadcasting on National Television "jew-bew-lay-shun", possibly because of careless reading on their part, or careless spelling on the part of the typist who wrote the script. As an aspiring author (?), I think you especially could appreciate the importance of complete command of the words, spelling, meaning, pronunciation, connotation, even etymology.
So do you think usage and diction could also use some polishing up as well? Like what you say with spelling, I think misunderstanding of what words and phrases mean could also cause damage, too. For example, 'ironic''s a big one. Or when to pluralize a word. People misuse words and phrasing and what they do gets lost that way, too.
An aspiring screenwriter, actually. I'd like to keep up my writing as if I were becoming an author though. Never know, I might try something involving lots of writing at some point. I'd have a lot of work to do to be a better writer though. I definitely appreciate the importance of being able to use the language. Expression in general is very important. Words are like the tools, really, and each words does something to say what you're trying to say.
01-06-06, 04:21 PM FredPuli Chester Drawers? Isn't he a friend to a tallboy ?
There is room for local variation in what is 'correct'. 'Chest of drawers' is pronounced 'Chester Drawers' by some quite posh English people, for whom enunciating the three words would seem quite affected, if not downright inferior . 'Forehead' and 'golf' were other words which it was not done to enunciate fully, any more than anyone says 'cup-board' for 'cupboard' nowadays (or ever did ). 'Forehead' was said as 'forrid'; this is still the first pronunciation given in the Oxford English Dictionary; and 'golf' was 'goff'.
01-06-06, 04:26 PM juanruiz One usage that isn't often mentioned is the conversion of the preposition "of" to an auxiliary verb, as in "I would of done it." I have seen college students write it that way.
01-06-06, 04:38 PM DorianGreyed Of course, those students (or someone before them) are mishearing/misunderstanding the contraction "would've." 01-06-06, 06:27 PM Professor
quote: Originally posted by coldfuse: I always wondered why Carter, a nuclear engineer in the United States Navy, also pronounces the word "nook-you-ler."
And I know an anesthesiologist who pronounces "larynx" as "lar-nix", despite his professional expertise with larynxes (oops, I mean, larynges). Come to think of it, the same guy also pronounces "escape" as "ex-cape." Go figure.
01-08-06, 09:36 AM juanruiz It's also interesting to see what changes have occured to foreign expressions absorbed into English. The German saying "Macht es nichts" ('It's not important' 'No big deal') has become "mox nix".
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
