# damn the teacher who decided "me" was a dirty word **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 20, 2011, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811 "2011-12-20T03:55:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/61 "2011-12-21T18:14:49Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > It’s worse than that. The National Association of Realtors expects everyone to capitalize the whole word: REALTOR. That’s why I tell them to go fuck themselves and call them estate agents. Yeah, Chicago says initial caps are fine, so that’s what they get. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/62 "2011-12-22T04:06:41Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I always forget to do it when we have these threads, so I’m going to read this one AFTER I point out that there is never an excuse to say “comfterble.” > [@Ruken](#): > > That’s pretty darn close to most pronunciations (/ˈkʌm.ftɚ.bəl/). Do you hypercorrect and pronounce it how it’s spelled or something? Forgive me, but doesn’t using the term _hypercorrect_[ion] imply that it is by definition, wrong? I do insist upon pronouncing the “r” sound before the “t” sound, FWIW, and I’ll happily go to the rhetorical mat against any claim that I am wrong to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/63 "2011-12-22T04:26:54Z")
He’s calling it hyper correction because he thinks it’s likely that you actually originally learned the kumftable pronunciation and at some point later in life looked at the spelling and decided to change your pronunciation to kumfertable. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/64 "2011-12-22T04:43:09Z")
Then I shall endeavor to take no offense. And I can’t recall changing my pronunciation. My father pronounces it with the word “comfort” inside, and he always has (well, for the 55 years I’ve been around, anyway). ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/65 "2011-12-22T04:46:15Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Then I shall endeavor to take no offense. > > And I can’t recall changing my pronunciation. My father pronounces it with the word “comfort” inside, and he always has (well, for the 55 years I’ve been around, anyway). How many syllables are in your Worcestershire sauce? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/66 "2011-12-22T04:49:30Z")
Three in “Worcestershire,” one in “sauce.” Is your question apropos of anything in particular? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/67 "2011-12-22T05:08:41Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Three in “Worcestershire,” one in “sauce.” > > Is your question apropos of anything in particular? I just wondered if you’d be comftable saying Woostashur is all–I mean, where does that extra r go, not to mention the e? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/68 "2011-12-22T05:44:45Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Forgive me, but doesn’t using the term hypercorrect[ion] imply that it is by definition, wrong? Regardless, the pronunciation of this word that bothers you so much is so common that it’s actually [the first example used in Wikipedia to demonstrate natural elision in English](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elision#English). Notice that it distinguishes that (particular) non-rhotic version. Because that particular syllable is not stressed, pronouncing the rhotic sound which you insist upon would be contrary to the natural speech of very large English-speaking populations, such as most Brits, and in fact, the OED lists as its only pronunciation (/ˈkʌmfətəb(ə)l/) the non-rhotic pronunciation. So the only difference between the OED pronunciation and the one that bothers you is just the elision of one unstressed vowel sound. /ˈkʌmfətəbəl/ =\> /ˈkʌmftəbəl/ As the article explains: [QUOTE=Wikipedia] Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase, producing a result that is **easier for the speaker to pronounce**. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect…In English, elision is **often unintentional** , giving a result that may in some cases be impressionistically described as “slurred” or “muted.” Often, however, the elision is deliberate, as in the use of contractions. [/quote] (Bolding mine.) In other words, this is a natural way to speak. The point of this whole thread is, in fact, something different–it’s hypercorrection, which is when people do something that not only is incorrect, but which _ **isn’t** _ natural (just because they think it’s “more educated”). It’s one thing to vary one’s speech naturally in a way that _may_ be “incorrect,” but to use speech in an affected, unnatural way that is _definitely_ incorrect is downright fatuous. So while I can see how something like this might bother you, I don’t think it belongs to the same category of complaint that started this thread (hypercorrection). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/69 "2011-12-22T06:19:29Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If I order dos thervethas in Spain, I’ll be understood, but those of us who learn Spanish from written sources think that’s bizarre. If you tell me you’ll visit me in Febyouary, you’ll be understood, but those of you who learn English from written sources think that’s bizarre. Same thing. > > In any case, of all the weird English spelling things to complain about, surely the missing /r/ in February is the least of your concerns? Don’t you want to start with the obnoxious “gh”? How easy do y’all find it to learn night, drought, draught, laugh, through, though, thought, and others I’m undoubtedly forgetting? Setting aside your understanding of Spanish phonetics and dialects (plus, as y’all don’t stop reminding us, an English th isn’t the same as a Spanish z), aren’t you forgetting that there are native speakers of English who pronounce February with two rs? That is, aren’t you doing exactly what you accuse prescriptivists of doing, and trying to impose your dialect on everybody else? And I didn’t learn my English from written sources, I learned it from people who pronounced twenty with two ts and February with two rs. My first encounter with people who pronounced February with one r and twenty with one t involved a handful of Americans (the ones whose pronunciation missed letters) laughing at the pronunciation of… nine Englishmen, one Scotswoman and a Welshman :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/70 "2011-12-22T06:27:58Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Setting aside your understanding of Spanish phonetics and dialects (plus, as y’all don’t stop reminding us, an English th isn’t the same as a Spanish z), aren’t you forgetting that there are native speakers of English who pronounce February with two rs? That is, aren’t you doing exactly what you accuse prescriptivists of doing, and trying to impose your dialect on everybody else? Not remotely–and you’re missing the point of thervethas. The point is precisely that your original explanation of why the R should be pronounced in “February” (i.e., to “make it easier for many foreigners to understand what’s being said”) is ridiculous and akin to my complaining about Castilian lisps. The R should be said, or not said, as is appropriate in the dialect; the c should be lisped or not lisped as appropriate in the dialect. (And I’m totally uninterested in arguing the pedantry of the phoneme involved or its correct representation–that’s a total red herring, thank you). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/71 "2011-12-22T06:30:01Z")
I wasn’t providing an explanation of why the two rs in February should be pronounced, I was providing an example of when pronouncing them assists communication. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/72 "2011-12-22T15:26:12Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > My first encounter with people who pronounced February with one r and twenty with one t involved a handful of Americans (the ones whose pronunciation missed letters) laughing at the pronunciation of… nine Englishmen, one Scotswoman and a Welshman :smack: I guess that’s better than [two game wardens, seven hunters and a cow](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iATzgXyhYRs). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/73 "2011-12-22T17:50:27Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I just wondered if you’d be comftable saying Woostashur is all–I mean, where does that extra r go, not to mention the e? I don’t take the same view toward elisions that I take toward reversing the order of the sounds that get left in. Call me inconsistent. Go ahead. Call me that. It’s the Pit; you can’t get in trouble for it. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/74 "2011-12-22T18:27:45Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I don’t take the same view toward elisions that I take toward reversing the order of the sounds that get left in. ([Metathesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics))). Both are ways that language inevitably changes over time, and it has only been because of the recent invention of printing that people can even say that these changes are “incorrect.” If you’d lived at the time of the [Great Vowel Shift](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift), would you have boycotted it? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/75 "2011-12-22T19:17:31Z")
As I’ve written before, I wish we had basic linguistics education included in primary and secondary school education. At the very it would decrease the frequency of ignorant mouth-foaming we see here about “incorrect” pronunciations. ---
**Author:** ![Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4bbf92/32.png) [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heart_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/76 "2011-12-22T21:51:51Z")
> [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](#): > > What’s wrong with “I looked him right in the eye?” Nothing at all. > [@Skammer](#): > > If you can’t look yourself in the mirror, how can you look yourself in the eye? Easy. You can look yourself in the eye in the mirror. There are two different verb phrases here, “to look at X”, and “to look X in the eye”. They operate in different ways. For instance, you can say, “I hit myself in the head”, which specifies what part of your body you hit. Or you can say, “I hit myself in the kitchen”, which specifies where you were when you hit some part of your body. You can say this because you can also say just, “I hit myself” which means you hit some part of your body, without any consideration for which part of the body, or where you were, or when it happened, or whatever. But you _can’t_ say just “I looked myself” or “I looked him”. The meaning is unclear. You have to specify the body part: “in the eye”, or maybe “in the face”. So when you say “I looked myself in the mirror”, it sounds like you’re saying you have a mirror attached to your body, and that’s the part you “looked yourself” in. If you’d say “I looked \*him \*in the mirror,” then fine - “I looked myself in the mirror” is consistent. But I’ve never heard anyone say that. Everyone seems to recognize that “at” is required until it becomes reflexive. That’s my reasoning, anyway, but I’m really not that worked up about it. “Irregardless”, however… No. Sorry, I’ll save it for another thread. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811/77 "2011-12-23T04:22:14Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > ([Metathesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics))). Both are ways that language inevitably changes over time, and it has only been because of the recent invention of printing that people can even say that these changes are “incorrect.” If you’d lived at the time of the [Great Vowel Shift](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift), would you have boycotted it? 🙂 The likelihood that I would have been literate during that period is so remote that I’ma punt on that one. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-the-teacher-who-decided-me-was-a-dirty-word/606811.md?page=3)