# It's nucular, Lisa: NUCULAR **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 12, 2005, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687 "2005-02-12T01:45:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2005, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/101 "2005-02-22T06:22:44Z")
> [@Nordic](#): > > So you admit that there is a standard. Yes. There is a dialect of English known as Standard American English, and it’s generally the dialect of writing (in the United States), television, and, really, most of the media. > [@Nordic](#): > > My question is, why should education _not_ be that standard? I specifically said that public education ought to teach SAE, since it’s a lot harder to be successful without a mastery of the dialect. > [@Nordic](#): > > Okay, elitism and snobbery aren’t nice, and I don’t advocate putting people down needlessly. If you say so. I’d say you go on to demonstrate your true feelings quite clearly later on. > [@Nordic](#): > > But aren’t more educated people presumed to be more knowledgeable, and therefore more correct, than the uneducated, whatever the subject in question? Only if you decide that a lot of the greatest writers in the history of the English language were “incorrect”. William Shakespeare didn’t go to college - perhaps that’s why he used so many “incorrect” forms, inventing words whole cloth. And then the foolish masses followed suit, using those words over and over until they became inextricably bound to our language! Goddamn plebes, fucking everything up. It amazes me how the lens of history makes people forget things like this. Shakespeare was popular entertainment. He was closer to Joel Bruckheimer than Robert Altman. It so happens that he was singularly talented, and so his works have survived when many of his contemporaries’ didn’t. But his theaters were filled with just the sort of people you seem to despise. They were closer to the audience on Jerry Springer than the crowd at a Kubrick flick. > [@Nordic](#): > > To suggest that the ignorant are just as knowledgeable or that their opinions are just as valid seems a little silly, and smacks of political correctness. When you’re sick do you see the doctor, or does his receptionist do? When you need legal advice, do you go to a lawyer or your barber? You’re talking here about expertise in a particular subject matter. How much expertise do you have in language? Are you a linguist? Are you even a writer? Actually, if you ask those who _do_ possess expertise in the field - linguists - they’ll agree that this sort of prescriptivism is wrong. I’m a student of linguistics, and my own views are definitely informed by my studies. Ironically, you’re advocating something quite opposite from seeing a lawyer about matters of law. You’re one of those people who thinks that speaking English and having a college degree makes one qualified to pass judgment on it. Hell, I have a body. Doesn’t that make me a doctor? Most “educated” people have virtually no understanding of linguistics, and with the decline in the popularity of the liberal arts education, frankly, most people have a depressing lack of knowledge of literature as well - even among the highly educated. SAE is the _medium_ of education. It’s not superior to other dialects; it simply happens to be the prestigious dialect in the United States. And what you need to understand is that the dialect (or, in many cases, the language) that assumes power is mostly the result of a historical accident. For instance, as the Reconquista took back bits of land in northern Spain from Muslim rule, several dialects (later to evolve into separate languages) emerged: in Galicia, Galego-Portuguese. In Asturias, Asturian. Around the city of Burgos, Castilian. In Aragon, Aragonese, and in Catalunya, Catalan. Each of these languages became the language of a small kingdom, but due to political history, Castile became culturally dominant (though it competed heavily with Catalunya for hundreds of years.) It’s only a historical accident that Castilian became the language of education in Spain, and yet today languages like Asturian and Aragonese are stigmatized as backwater, uneducated languages. Had Aragon’s command of the Mediterranean lasted, however, the situation today might be quite different, and Castilian might instead have ended up some obscure language tucked up in Spain’s north. Similar things happened in France. Provençal, once the language of the troubadours and thus popular throughout Europe, faded in importance when the Francien-speakers in the north ended up with political control of France. Thus, the language now known as French has mostly displaced Provençal, and again, the latter is now considered a hick language. Did the languages that lost so much prestige somehow change qualitatively? Why did the language that once entertained all of Europe fade away and become associated with ruralness and a lack of education? I offer these examples to demonstrate the fact that the dialect that happens to be associated with those in political power always seems to become the “educated” dialect; there is no objective basis for claiming one language is superior to another. It’s easier to see from the outside, since United Statesians are generally a little less emotionally invested in Spanish or French than in English, and I hope that these examples have demonstrated that linguistic prestige is fleeting and not connected to any particular qualities of the language or dialect in question. > [@Nordic](#): > > That’s the crux of it for me. “Alternative” pronunciations (which I maintain are wrong) are the product of ignorance, not some society-wide democratic vote. So what about words with multiple _accepted_ pronunciations? “Ah-mond” or “all-mond”? “Ap-pricot” or “ay-pricot”? What does it indicate about a speaker if they pronounce “Mary”, “merry”, and “marry” as homonyms (as is true in most of the United States) as opposed to using a separate vowel in each one? In some U.S. dialects, “writer” and “rider” are homonyms, but as a Michigander, my dialect has Canadian Raising, which means that they’re /rUI 4@r/ and /raI 4@r/, respectively, for me. Who’s wrong on this issue? There’s tons of linguistic variation we accept without question. If you maintain that some dialectual variation is acceptable and some is not, how do you decide which “alternate” forms are okay? Who speaks correctly? I don’t know anyone who really speaks newscaster-style SAE in their everyday life. > [@Nordic](#): > > It irks me that the often-beautiful precision of the English language is constantly hijacked, diluted and corrupted by the less-knowledgeable. Sure, they have the numbers on their side, but that doesn’t make them right. So what makes _you_ right? What is it about the forms you use that makes them superior to those used by speakers of other dialects? I’ve broken down several times why, for linguistic reasons, “nucular” is unremarkable alongside quite a few accepted standard forms. I’ve explained why I don’t think linguistic prescriptivism is justifiable. I’ve demonstrated just how arbitrary the chioce of “standard” can be. So what makes you right? I don’t care about your emotional reaction to hearing speakers of other dialects, and I’m not swayed by your histrionics regarding the “corruption” of your language. I’ve heard it all before, and I’ve amply demonstrated in previous posts that these “corruptions” soon become normal forms. Should we go back to saying “thrid”? Should we roll back the Great Vowel Shift (it’d actually do some good in making spellings more reasonable)? Did you know that the original word for “apron” was “napron”? Yep, this was an example of wrong cutting: “a napron” was misanalyzed by speakers as “an apron”. Same deal with “umpire”. Should we fix those? If you’re claiming that one particular dialect is superior to others, why? What about your dialect makes it better than everyone else’s? Why is yours pure and precise, and others’ “corrupt”? What makes the correct forms correct? Why are the masses wrong? Didn’t the masses - those with “numbers on their side”, as you put it - create the English language? What, is the linguistic legacy of those barbaric Teutonic tribes the equivalent of a “fixer-upper” house - it needs folks like you to somehow restore its purity and dignity? Because for over a millenium, English survived a population that was almost universally illiterate. It survived enormous dialectual variation within England itself (and dialect variation on Britain still dwarves anything you’ll see in the United States.) How did it totter along all those years if its dignity and beauty are so fragile that a couple non-standard forms threaten to destroy it? You used the word “corrupt”, which implies that there is a certain purity to English, though presumably only when it’s spoken by literate people with college degrees. This “purity” is pure fantasy, though. English survived being considered the rustic tongue of ignorant swineherds after the Normans conquered in 1066. Hell, the oldest piece of literature in the language is about some dude named Beowulf slaying monsters - Plato’s Republic it ain’t. There is no “pure” form of English, untouched by the hands of the illiterate, and there never was. There are the semi-artificial standard forms, most notoriously Received Pronunciation (the dialect of Britain’s aristocracy during the 19th century and most of the 20th), whose dialectual features truly were almost entirely artificial. There’s just nothing to corrupt, because there _is_ no “basic” or “original” or “correct” form to corrupt. There’s just a lot of separate forms that exist alongside each other - as in the example of “ask” that I cited in an earlier post. “Ax” has existed as another pronunciation of the word for over a thousand years! And yet it’s still considered to be an illiterate corruption of the language. I don’t buy it. > [@Nordic](#): > > In an earlier post you said you’re “not trying to make a bold call for everyone to speak however they like.” To that I say: Why not? If it’s okay for nucular, why shouldn’t it be okay across the board? People shouldn’t be shamed for the speech of their native community. Southerners shouldn’t be ridiculed for having southern accents. People from Washington state shouldn’t be ridiculed for pronouncing “Don” and “Dawn” with the same vowel (the phonemic distinction between those two vowels seems to be rapidly disappearing in North American English.) Black people who grow up speaking AAVE shouldn’t be ridiculed for it. That’s what I’m saying. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/102 "2005-04-13T14:13:44Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > The phenomenon is called “metathesis”, and is common in many languages. Most people say EYE-earn instead of EYER-on (iron) and COMF-ter-bl instead of COM-for-ta-bl (comfortable). A lot of people also say REAL-a-ter instead of REAL-ter (realtor). Bad choice for REALTOR. The word is a proprietary description; belonging to the association of realtors. They get to choose how to pronounce their own name and they chose “REAL-TER”. If anyone wants to mispronounce it, fine, just understand that that’s what they’re doing - mispronouncing! ---
**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:** [April 13, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/103 "2005-04-13T14:22:00Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > Bad choice for REALTOR. The word is a proprietary description; belonging to the association of realtors. What a fascinating bump! I wonder if you could tell me how to contact this association of realtors: I’d like to look at their trademark documents. (If you don’t mean that this association has trademarked the word, could you please clarify in what sense the word belongs to them?) Daniel ---
**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:** [April 13, 2005, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/104 "2005-04-13T14:23:24Z")
D’oh! Teach me to do some research before being snarky: it turns out that **Bwana** is absolutely right. The National Association of Realtors has this term as a service mark. My apologies. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/105 "2005-04-13T14:43:26Z")
And while we’re at it… All previous arguments aside - if I hear you say “lie-berry” instead of “li-brery”, I’m going to assume that you are an uneducated rube, or that you were incorrigible, and I’ll wonder what else you refused to learn as a child. Ditto for “nucular”. In the 70’s I worked in a dry cleaner store. Their name contained the word “nuclear”. They stuck in a hyphen to prevent pronunciation madness: “NU-CLEAR CLEANERS”. They still had a-holes calling it “NUCULAR” CLEANERS. The idiots didn’t even understand a hyphen! ---
**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:** [April 13, 2005, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/106 "2005-04-13T14:45:50Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > And while we’re at it… > > All previous arguments aside - if I hear you say “lie-berry” instead of “li-brery”, > I’m going to assume that you are an uneducated rube, or that you were incorrigible, and I’ll wonder what else you refused to learn as a child. Well, bully for you! All you’re telling us is that you like to draw unsubstantiated conclusions from the evidence at hand. While I learn from that not to trust any declarations you make about whether someone’s educated, that’s not particularly relevant to my life. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/107 "2005-04-13T17:07:00Z")
Lefty - I wasn’t aiming my last post at “you” personally; I reread my post and realized it could have been construed that way. That wasn’t my intention. The “you” was meant generically, I should have use “anyone”. Still, I will not apologize for judging a person by the way they speak. I wouldn’t use my “lie-berry” rule in a vacuum; perhaps the person has a speech impediment; I still look at people on a case-by-case basis. Hell, they may not like the way I speak - fine - if it’s someone I care about or whom I have great deal of respect for, that would affect me. Otherwise I wouldn’t care. I look at these “mispronunciations” in the same way I view people who litter. Littering is wrong. But people are lazy and lots of them do it. You can’t stop everyone without having a cop on every block. Eventually littering, there are just as many litterers as non-litterers. That doesn’t make it right. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/108 "2005-04-13T17:08:30Z")
Ugh - must learn to reread posts before sending. There’s an extra littering in my next to last sentence! ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/109 "2005-04-13T17:27:50Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > Lefty - I wasn’t aiming my last post at “you” personally; I reread my post and realized it could have been construed that way. That wasn’t my intention. The > “you” was meant generically, I should have use “anyone”. > > Still, I will not apologize for judging a person by the way they speak. I wouldn’t use my “lie-berry” rule in a vacuum; perhaps the person has a speech impediment; I still look at people on a case-by-case basis. > > Hell, they may not like the way I speak - fine - if it’s someone I care about or whom I have great deal of respect for, that would affect me. Otherwise I wouldn’t care. > > I look at these “mispronunciations” in the same way I view people who litter. > Littering is wrong. But people are lazy and lots of them do it. You can’t stop everyone without having a cop on every block. Eventually littering, there are just as many litterers as non-litterers. That doesn’t make it right. What you don’t seem to be getting is this. . . You make a judgement that people who say “nucular” are uneducated rubes. People have tried to point out in this thread that there are complicated linguistic reasons why people mis-pronounce common words that other people have no trouble with. It’s not related to laziness. It’s not related to intelligence. Given that, you have a couple choices. 1. Study linguistics and learn it for yourself. 2. Take the word of people who have studied linguistics that there’s more going on than laziness or stupidity. 3. Just stubbornly bull forward with your own erroneous assumptions while folding your arms across your chest, stomping your foot and loudly and repeatedly declaring, “I’ve made up my mind and that’s all there is to it.” [sample link.](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001999.html) ---
**Author:** ![Strainger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strainger/32/244_2.png) [@Strainger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strainger)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/110 "2005-04-13T18:00:04Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#): > > Would you hire someone who used pronunciations such as…LI-BERRY ? I haven’t been fired yet. ---
**Author:** ![omni-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8dc957/32.png) [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/111 "2005-04-13T18:00:45Z")
Conformance, **Ludovic** , _conformance_?? :eek: I just couldn’t let that one go through… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/112 "2005-04-13T18:53:41Z")
Okay here’s as far as I’ll go - I know you don’t care either way so save your smartass retorts. My own brother (who is an intelligent man) also says nucular. It makes him “sound” stupid and ignorant. I know he is not. Still, I make fun of him for his mispronunciation. See the point is the people who say nucular refuse to accept that they are the one’s that are altering an established word’s pronunciation. Sorry, but a mob saying “it’s so” doesn’t make it so. Period. In the future I will not judge a persons intelligence by using nucular alone, but it’s going to raise a red flag. Now go find some other words to mangle. Anecdote: a bunch of “locals” in Binghamton NY insist that the street in their neighborhood (where all the streets are named after classical composers) is pronounced “BEETH”-“OH”-“VEN” Street. But I suppose you all will defend that too. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/113 "2005-04-13T18:55:33Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > And while we’re at it… > > All previous arguments aside - if I hear you say “lie-berry” instead of “li-brery”, > I’m going to assume that you are an uneducated rube, or that you were incorrigible, and I’ll wonder what else you refused to learn as a child. > > Ditto for “nucular”. That’s fine. Since I’ve already amply demonstrated that there’s simply no basis to decide what’s correct and what’s not, all you’re doing is making it clear that you’re an idiot. I’m fine with that. I’d rather that idiots like you make it obvious. Ideally, you’d have to wear signs, but the self-esteem brigade doesn’t seem to like that idea. By the way, do you have any evidence that there’s an official pronunciation of “realtor”? Is there a page on their website entitled “How to pronounce realtor”? > [@BwanaBob](#): > > I look at these “mispronunciations” in the same way I view people who litter. > Littering is wrong. But people are lazy and lots of them do it. You can’t stop everyone without having a cop on every block. Eventually littering, there are just as many litterers as non-litterers. That doesn’t make it right. And this is what it always comes down to. When idiots who’ve been occupying indefensible positions get called on it, they make irrational comparisons. Littering is bad because we don’t want to live in a place heaped up with garbage. If your bad analogy is designed to suggest that we’re being surrounded by linguistic garbage, then read my last post a little more slowly (I can try again with shorter words if you need.) If you disagree, and think there is some sort of “pure” form of English, describe it, and tell the rest of us what makes it pure. But if you’re just going to appeal to abstract concepts of “correct” and “incorrect” without proving it - without coming up with convincing evidence that one form is correct and one is incorrect - then you’re just repeating dogma you were taught by your fourth grade teacher. That makes you an idiot. Being unable to question what you’re taught as a child is pathetic. In religion it results in snakehandlers and televangelists; in language, it leads to idiocy like this. I do enjoy this, though. It’s fun seeing people who have virtually no knowledge of language defending these sort of voodoo superstitions. It’d be like a person insisting, over and over, in the face of proof to the contrary, that sickness is caused by an imbalance of the humors. It’s not only indefensible once you understand it, but it’s truly bizarre that so many people believe they have some knowledge that trumps what the experts know. Why would you venture an opinion on a subject you don’t know anything about? I could insist that I know the best way to fix my car, but it wouldn’t convince the mechanic. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/114 "2005-04-13T19:15:27Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > By the way, do you have any evidence that there’s an official pronunciation of “realtor”? Is there a page on their website entitled “How to pronounce realtor”? > > And this is what it always comes down to. When idiots who’ve been occupying indefensible positions get called on it, they make irrational comparisons. Littering is bad because we don’t want to live in a place heaped up with garbage. If your bad analogy is designed to suggest that we’re being surrounded by linguistic garbage, then read my last post a little more slowly (I can try again with shorter words if you need.) If you disagree, and think there is some sort of “pure” form of English, describe it, and tell the rest of us what makes it pure. But if you’re just going to appeal to abstract concepts of “correct” and “incorrect” without proving it - without coming up with convincing evidence that one form is correct and one is incorrect - then you’re just repeating dogma you were taught by your fourth grade teacher. That makes you an idiot. Being unable to question what you’re taught as a child is pathetic. In religion it results in snakehandlers and televangelists; in language, it leads to idiocy like this. > > I do enjoy this, though. It’s fun seeing people who have virtually no knowledge of language defending these sort of voodoo superstitions. It’d be like a person insisting, over and over, in the face of proof to the contrary, that sickness is caused by an imbalance of the humors. It’s not only indefensible once you understand it, but it’s truly bizarre that so many people believe they have some knowledge that trumps what the experts know. Why would you venture an opinion on a subject you don’t know anything about? I could insist that I know the best way to fix my car, but it wouldn’t convince the mechanic. As to realtor - try calling one up before you comment. I’ve taken real estate sales license training and you meet quite a few. They invented the word - they get to call the pronunciation - not local sentiment. Its a copyrighted term. You don’t get to call the golden arches people “McDunnas” without being wrong. Sorry my fourth grade teachers were only concerned with basics - like arithmetic, English, history. I’m so sorry I didn’t think to question that 10 x 5 might not equal 50? I guess I’m just a lemming. Yeah - question authority - hell no we won’t go. :rolleyes: I will grant that there are reasons beyond laziness/stupidity that cause people to pronounce words in a non-standard way (sorry - I won’t budge on this - accents don’t count here, only that letters in established sequences are pronounced in standard ways). If I was around when the potayto /potahto thing started I would have argued then too. It’s when people don’t give it any importance or are too stubborn to see the other side that we wind up with multiple pronunciations. Still, If I mispronounce a word I \*\*want \*\* to be corrected. I don’t care if I’m 1 in a million or 1 in 4. And I loathe people who are so full of themselves that they cannot bear to be corrected. But in the long run this “subject” doesn’t really matter does it? 😉 ---
**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:** [April 13, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/115 "2005-04-13T19:15:44Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > My own brother (who is an intelligent man) also says nucular. It makes him “sound” stupid and ignorant. I know he is not. Still, I make fun of him for his mispronunciation. Sure, and my own brother makes fun of how I pronounce nuclear. It makes him “seem” like an ignorant asshole. I know he is not; still, I try not to spend time around him.\* You’ve got an ignorant prejudice here, **Bwana**. We’re trying real hard to fight your ignorance on this subject, but I think we’re at the point where you either need to crack open a book or tell us that you’re unfightable here. Daniel - Untrue story! ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/116 "2005-04-13T19:18:39Z")
By the way - this is the PIT right? Not Great Debates? I don’t need to justify one god damned opinion here or use Roberts Rules style of debate. ---
**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:** [April 13, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/117 "2005-04-13T19:21:13Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > As to realtor - try calling one up before you comment. I’ve taken real estate sales license training and you meet quite a few. They invented the word - they get to call the pronunciation - not local sentiment. Its a copyrighted term. It\*\*’\*\*s not a copyrighted term–there’s no such thing as a copyrighted term. Still, I knew what you meant, so you communicated effectively; no worries! (It’s service-marked). Nonetheless, who says that they get to call the pronunciation? Is that part of service mark law? Can you cite the relevant passage? Why would service marks work differently, in this respect, from all other human language? You’ll need to explain this one further. > [@](#): > > You don’t get to call the golden arches people “McDunnas” without being wrong. Sez who, and why do I care what they say? > [@](#): > > I’m so sorry I didn’t think to question that 10 x 5 might not equal 50? I guess I’m just a lemming. Yeah - question authority - hell no we won’t go. :rolleyes: Petulance!=intelligent argument. When asked to justify your viewpoint, sarcastic sulking doesn’t get you very far. > [@](#): > > Still, If I mispronounce a word I \*\*want \*\* to be corrected. I don’t care if I’m 1 in a million or 1 in 4. And I loathe people who are so full of themselves that they cannot bear to be corrected. And if you’re one in two, are you still mispronouncing it? If folks who work with nuclear weaponry say “nukular,” if folks who work in nuclear power plants say “nukular,” in what possible sense are you in a position to gainsay them? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/118 "2005-04-13T19:33:21Z")
You’ve taken my analogy incorrectly. I don’t want to have to deal with every person being able to pronouce any given word anyway they please (which is what your position defends if taken to extreme). It’s not fair that I would have to analyze every word that everyone says and determine what they might have actually meant. And that’s a two way street, it’s wrong for me to foist any pronunciation peculiarities that I may have on everyone else. We need a standard and if people choose to deviate from the standard, just have the guts to admit it and not try to hide behind the fact that there are others like you. Then try to use the standard. Similarly it is wrong for me to have to contend with other people’s trash. They should respect the “norm” and that norm is to be neat. Sorry, it’s a simple analogy. You won’t accept that there is a norm. Fine. I will only concede that vowels have regional pronunciations (hence merry/mary/marry). I will not concede this for consonants or imaginary letter transpositions. (Isn’t that one of the forms of dyslexia?) ---
**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:** [April 13, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/119 "2005-04-13T19:41:55Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > I don’t want to have to deal with every person being able to pronouce any given word anyway they please (which is what your position defends if taken to extreme). In no sense is it what my or **Excalibre’s** position defends if taken to the extreme; you’re just demonstrating that you’ve not understood the position. In one sense, however, it’s perfectly true: every person CAN pronou **n** ce any given word any way they please (assuming their tongue and mouth can make the appropriate shapes). The only question is whether they’ll communicate effectively by doing so. Perhaps you should restate my or **Excalibre’s** position in your own words, without mockery, to demonstrate that you’ve paid attention to the point that you’re arguing against. Because I don’t think you have. > [@](#): > > It’s not fair that I would have to analyze every word that everyone says and determine what they might have actually meant. First, when did “fair” enter into it? Second, what makes you think that’s not what you’re doing now? Again, you demonstrate that you don’t understand how language works. > [@](#): > > We need a standard and if people choose to deviate from the standard, just have the guts to admit it and not try to hide behind the fact that there are others like you. I agree: those damned Frenchies need to learn to speak English. Don’t they know that “cat” begins with a hard “k” noise and ends with a hard “t”? Haven’t they studied the standard? Or are we allowed to have different standards for French and for English? If so, how many different standards are we allowed to have, and by what authority? > [@](#): > > Sorry, it’s a simple analogy. The simplicity of it isn’t what you need to apologize for. > [@](#): > > You won’t accept that there is a norm. Fine. I will only concede that vowels have regional pronunciations (hence merry/mary/marry). I will not concede this for consonants or imaginary letter transpositions. (Isn’t that one of the forms of dyslexia?) Who said there’s not a norm? And what sort of chicken-sacrificing religion do you belong to that leads you to concede the former point but not the latter? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687/120 "2005-04-13T19:45:52Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > And if you’re one in two, are you still mispronouncing it? If folks who work with nuclear weaponry say “nukular,” if folks who work in nuclear power plants say “nukular,” in what possible sense are you in a position to gainsay them? > > Daniel You really expect me to believe that the country is split 50-50 on pronouncing nuclear? I refuse to ask for a cite since this is the Pit. Would we have the same discussion about the word “doesn’t”? Are you one of the people who say “dudn’t”? Guess what my take on that word would be? It’s not correct; I don’t care if all of Dixie says it that way. I guess I’m dense. I cannot conceive of someone willfully deciding that they cannot pronounce a word as first taught to them, create a new form and pass that one along. Can these people say the following sentence: I bought a shiny new clear window for my bedroom? Please don’t tell me they say "shiny nucular window’. Of course they don’t. So why when shown the word nuclear, told its pronunciation, would someone say “new-clear …uh no… new-cue-ler yes…”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-nucular-lisa-nucular/289687.md?page=7)