It's nucular, Lisa: NUCULAR

Excalibre
How much “leeway” in pronunciation is acceptable?
To me, saying “Nuke-You-Lar” for “nuclear” goes far beyond mispronunciation. It is saying something entirely wrong.
(Dopers is there a term for this type of error?)

If this is an acceptable pronunciation then I could make an equation whereby
“Nuke-le-ar” = “Nuke-you-lar”
Subtracting the “nukes” from both sides we get
“le-ar” = “you-lar”.
I read “King Yoular” in school - how about you?
If I had the money, I’d like to buy a “Yoular” jet.

And what’s the big deal about those those fancy “scientifical” words? You know things like “methyl alcohol” and “ethyl alcohol”? Just one letter difference. My God, how anal retentive do people want us to be?

Ignatz it’s good to see someone else equally outraged by the trashing of the English language.

But if you go down that road, that means I could say “bubbanubba soopley cwaprety” and claim that’s the correct pronunciation of The Lords Prayer.

Madness, I tells ye!

Guano Lad
PRE-cisely !!!

Sure, why bother with the exact nature of language? Did the surgeon say “subdural” or “epidural”. Oh who cares ? The surgeon is just making that fancy schmantzy medical talk so he can feel superior to the rest of us.

When I tell people I have multiple sclerosis they say “Oh yeah Jerry Lewis raises money for that on his telethon”. It’s easy to confuse the two - they both have 2 words, they both have 6 syllables and they both begin with ‘mu’. (Don’t worry I am quite ambulatory - I just get tired a LOT. I didn’t bring that up for pity. It’s right on topic for this thread. Actually, I find it hilarious how often people think I have the other disease. LOL)

As for “bubbanubba soopley cwaprety”, I’ll tell my boss hey those are my calculations for this Fiscal Quarter. Well at least that’s the way I pronounce it.

Actually, that’s the opposite of what Excalibre said: you can’t claim that it’s correct.

Yeah, I realised afterward that i didn’t say what I actually meant. How ironic.

I meant to say:
But if you go down that road, that means I could say “bubbanubba soopley cwaprety” and claim that’s The Lords Prayer.

“That’s not true. I misquoted myself.” — Charles Barkley

:smiley:

So what’s your justification for saying it’s incorrect? Why is it wrong? It’s a common pronunciation of the word. What makes a common pronunciation wrong?

If there’s a “correct” and an “incorrect” in language, then there has to be some source for making that determination. The source I look to, and the source dictionary makers look to, and the source linguists look to, is usage. You know, that old bitch Norma Loquendi. The way people actually talk. What’s your source for right and wrong?

What? /nuk/ isn’t a morpheme on its own. The word wasn’t formed from /nuk/ plus an ending - the slang term “nuke” is a backformation. I don’t see why you’d think you could just chop it off - or what point you’re trying to make. Really, I’m utterly puzzled as to what you could be trying to demonstrate here. (Furthermore, the ending on “nuclear”, in my dialect at least, is two syllables: /li @r/. Whereas the king depicted in the Bard’s greatest tragedy is just one: /lir/. I doubt that’s different in your dialect; I’ve certainly never heard either /nu klir/ or /kIN li @r/.)

If you don’t understand the difference between technical language used for a very specific purpose, and explicitly defined by a governing body (in this case IUPAC, who set up such things as naming rules for organics and systematic names that never get used - methanoic acid, anyone?) and the language used in the real world by most people, then this is going to be a difficult discussion. There’s no governing body defining English usage that you can appeal to here - but then, in some languages there is one. No one takes the Royal Spanish Academy seriously on usage issues either. Hell, chemists don’t even use the systematic names for things if they’re too used to the old ones.

What I find distressing is that people seem to believe that my native language - the language of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Joyce, and William Carlos Williams, among others, is such a fragile, sickly creature that it’s in danger of dying when teenagers use slang terms or people from other parts of the country continue pronouncing things the way they have for fifty years. It’s the second-most widely spoken language on earth - you think /nu kju l@r/ is gonna kill it? Is English really so weak and bereft of power that it won’t survive what you mistakenly call incorrect usage?

Thank you, Liberal. GuanoLad, if you had bothered to read my previous post, you would have noticed that I consider the only definition of “correctness” to be common usage. If you claimed that “bubbanubba soopley cwaprety” was the Lord’s Prayer, you’d be the only one doing so. It wouldn’t be a valid claim, because if English speakers don’t do it, it’s not English. It’s the way normal people speak that counts.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. If you can find a real justification for /nu kli @r/ being correct and /nu kju l@r/ being wrong, I’ll listen. But if it’s based on an appeal to past pronuncation, I’ll laugh, because the pronunciation of words changes all the time. If it’s based on some sense that /nu kli @r/ is closer to the root word (/nu kli @s/), then I’d point out how many words have radically different pronunciations from their roots.

So far, though, you guys haven’t done any of that. I mean, look at your posts responding to my first one. You haven’t come up with a single justification for deciding that /nu kli @r/ is the correct pronunciation. What authority determines it? What mechanism can we use to distinguish correct and incorrect speech? Who sets the rules, and why should anyone listen to them?

You’ve taken it for granted that one is “correct” and the other is somehow “trashing” the English language. Why is the way you happen to pronounce it correct? As has been pointed out, former president Jimmy Carter was an engineer who worked on nuclear engines - he pronounced it the “incorrect” way. Why shouldn’t I believe him? Not only was he president (what higher authority can you ask for?) but also he no doubt new a damn lot more about them and worked a damn lot closer to them than you or I. Wouldn’t it be logical, in light of that fact, to acknowledge Carter’s pronunciation as correct?

Tell me how we decide what’s correct and what’s not, and we can talk. Otherwise, you’re blowing smoke just like folks who insist that only the style of music they listen to is worthwhile, or that you really should convert to their religion.

Bush pronounces nuclear the “wrong” way.

LET’S PIT HIM!

Bush pronounces nuclear the “right” way.

LET’S PIT HIM!

Bush finds out he’s been pronouncing it the wrong way, but refuses to change.

LET’S PIT HIM!

Bush finds out he’s been pronouncing it the wrong way, and starts pronouncing it the right way.

LET’S PIT HIM!
Aaaah yes. It’s good here, isn’t it? Fighting inggerince, an’ all that…

I actually agree with the conservative Aussie. Who cares how Bush pronounces the damn word, as long as no red button gets pushed? Sheesh.

Fair suck of the sav Mayyte. :wink:

Last time I chimed in on this Ice reminded me I talk funny. I am sitting here saying “Nu-clear, Nu-clear-a, Nuke-ku-lah, Nuke-you-la” trying to remember how I actually say it. Nuke-you-la won.

I loathe that Shrub person with a passion but if he is to be convicted on pro-noun-ci-a-tion/pro-nun-ci-a-tion alone, then I have to burn with him and that is hardly fair. I never invaded anywhere.

:smiley: Actually the Kiwification of the Sydney accent continues apace.

It is an evil ,yet effective plan. :slight_smile:

I can’t even remember when I said you’d talked funny, calm kiwi. Kinda scary thinking them Sydneysiders might start soundin’ like someone who sips a cappucino on Ponsonby Road, mind. :slight_smile:

Folks, who th’ merry hell is this “Lisa” in the OP title? I could take personal umbrage at that, I could. Humph!

It’s a Simpsons reference. Lisa simpson says “nuclear”, and her mother corrects her, “nu-cu-lar”.

Ah, cool. Thanks, TLD. That has been bugging me all day, tryin’ t’ work it out. Ta muchly.

Well you didn’t exactly say I talked funny…I just confessed that I pronounced it Nuke-you-la and implied it was normal here. You corrected me. :slight_smile:

I can’t remember the last time I sipped a cappachino on Ponsonby road. I’m far too fond of long blacks and the shore for that. :slight_smile: We should do that meet in the middle-of-town thing oneday.

It is a common phenomenon that occurs when some combiniation of letters that are hard to pronounce appear in a word. Other common examples are Library, February and my favorite - because it is now considered the correct pronunciation - iron. No one I know says I-RON (OK, some dorks in college did.)

Get over it already.

Wasn’t it Homer correcting Lisa?

Yes, things went to hell when the Pilgrims moved to Boston from Ohio.