Well genius, I re-read the entire thread and even followed the “ask a linguist” link that someone cited. You obviously read all their answers right? Because one of them calls nucular a “popular mispronunciation”. Oh you didn’t see that? An expert that agrees with me, the moron? Go fuck yourself.
Here’s the cite since you must have missed it.
Nice selective quoting! She calls it “a popular mispronunciation (relative to the dictionary pronunciation, and probably that of the majority of native speakers).” Do you read much? Because that’s not exactly strong support for your point, fucktard. (Not to mention that there’s nothing to indicate that she’s any more than a subscriber to a mailing list . . . and contrast what she says with what the other replies say.) Finding one possible expert who maybe sorta agrees with you is not an achievement. I’m sorry if this upsets you, but linguistics does not support the kind of judgmentalism you wish to apply to language. In fact, it constantly finds more reasons to oppose it.
If you’d like to put together a response that somehow establishes some set of criteria for determining what the “correct” pronunciation of a word is, be my guest. Unless you’re even stupider than I’ve come to think, you can see the problem with people declaring something “correct” or “incorrect” and not providing any reasons. Sit and think for a moment about that - what does correct or incorrect mean? It’s not like math. Math is pretty clear-cut that way; if the equation doesn’t balance or the proof contains a hole, then it’s not correct. But there is no such natural standard for language, so if you want to use a word like “correct” you have to come up with a meaning for it. I’m sorry that you wish to cling to some dogmatic view of language use you picked up in schools; I think the way English is taught is quite poor. But you’ll need to do better than “It’s just wrong!” Since there’s no central authority to appeal to, and nothing about the pronunciation “nucular” to cause any sort of problem of misinterpretation or confusion, there’s simply nothing that springs to mind to legitimize one pronunciation and condemn another.
What’s to be gained from judging people by the way they pronounce “nuclear”, anyway? You’ve already provided the example of your brother, who you apparently don’t think is lazy or uneducated. Your prejudice regarding the pronunciation of this word would lead you astray in that example. So what’s to be gained from it?
That comes close to offending me.
Why–because you think language has right and wrong pronunciations, or because you’re a creationist?
Either way, the analogy holds: on one side are people who take a stand because of some moral impulse, and on the other side are people who take a stand because scientific fact and logic support them.
In either case, the two sides end up talking past each other, because one side isn’t particularly swayed by the argument that it’d be cool if it worked this way, and the other side isn’t swayed by the argument that it does work this way.
Daniel
I’ve also not got a problem with people pronouncing “Paris” as “Pair-iss” instead of “Pair-ee.” Indeed, in that population which has changed the city’s pronunciation (while keeping the spelling), I find it annoying and pretentious when people pronounce it as “Pair-ee.” Pronunciations change all the time while the spelling remains the same.
Keep in mind that I think the example is silly: the example you gave doesn’t demonstrate how pronunciation shifts. Admittedly, it’s an “extreme” example, which really means that it’s an example that has little to do with the real world. And the way language works in the real world is what concerns me.
Why? Because it’ll help them communicate better? If that’s all you’re saying, then I provisionally agree with you (with the stipulation that they want to communicate with the rest of us). But if you’re saying that there’s any other reason why they should spell it “packle,” you’ll need to explain.
Again, this is what’s frustrating: y’all aren’t explaining WHY things should be the way you say they should be. You’re just repeating the assertion.
Here you run into problems. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t understand either pronunciation of the word. All I’ve met is people who get in a tizzy when someone uses the pronunciation they don’t like.
So, if you know that your intended audience is anal on this issue, and it’s important to you for their obsessive elitism not to get in the way of your communication, then it’d behoove you to pronounce it however they’d prefer (which, for a military elitist audience, would probably be “nukular,” and for a civilian elitist audience, would probably be “new-clee-ur”). But if you figure it’s their problem, they’ll understand you however you say it, then say it however you’d like.
Again, the water–>packle shift runs into the problem of reducing your ability to communicate with other people. The new-clee-ur–>new-kew-lur shift doesn’t run into that problem, except with specific audiences who deliberately make it a problem.
Daniel