Well it looks like I’m the one at the end. i knew that though, I saw them on preview but I didn’t want to put my good work to waste.
Beat ya both!
[/smug mode]
But at least you knew the proper name for “curvy-line-thingy”
What we have here folks is the collision between phonetics & dictionaries written without the phonetic alphabet. In short, I’m going to go with the way I hear the professional linguists pronounce the word.
Which, come to think of it, brings us back to the OP! (Can you believe that?)
Bush is going with the way he’s always heard the people in his speech community pronounce the word written nuclear. It has nothing to do with laziness or stupidity. It’s just the way it’s pronounced in his speech community.
So, we can all be happy now!
That is pure bullshit, Monty. Bush is a dyslexic, ignorant fuck and everybody knows it. Why are you enabling his dry drunk dysphonics?
(From an American stand up comedian whose name escapes me right now, early 80’s)
“What is up with all those people pronouncing it “noo-cue-ler”? Senators even pronounce it that way! Now, call me reactionary, but I don’t think you should get to vote on this shit until you learn how to pronounce it, OK?”
Now that stung, Monty. But I will rise above the dead husk of my former self and not flame you for it.
Just to correct your impression, I do indeed give a whit about facts. I also hold very strong opinions, some of which include the notion (possibly parochial) that certain words have only one acceptable pronunciation. However, I will concede that, not being academically trained in linguistics, I do not have a comprehensive command of all of the arcana of linguistic academia’s lore. I will therefore grant you your point about Phonotactics for the purposes of this discussion, and keep my opinions about Shrub’s pronunciation of the word “nuclear” to myself, while still retaining the right to instruct people in an appropriate and respectful manner should I personally encounter them using a “wrong” pronunciation.
As to the controversy over the pronunciation of the word “larynx”, the site you directed us to gives a pronunciation key with: (l[sup]a[/sup]r’ • [sup]i[/sup]ngks). Okay, collision of phonetics and dictionaries without phonetic alphabets, as you say. I gather from what you have described that, phonetically, the short “i” sound does not properly belong in the pronunciation at all. Please correct me if I have misinterpreted. However, if I have not misinterpreted, it appears that the professional linguists of whom you speak choose to put one in anyway, and pronounce the second syllable to rhyme with “Styx,” rather than with “Sphinx.” That is, on what everybody else in this discussion is calling the wrong side of the “n” sound. Just as a favor to us all, could you maybe ask some of these professional linguists why they make this choice, when the letter “y” seems to be practically begging to be pronounced as a short “i” right before (as opposed to right after) the letter “n?” With any luck, they will be able to answer without being stricken by “larnigitis.” 
Also, speaking of the collision between phonetics, and dictionaries that do not use the phonetic alphabet, might you be able to link to a site that does use the phonetic alphabet?
I’m not sure, although I vaguely recall hearing the routine. Could it have been George Carlin? The attitude fits.
Is the larynx an endangered species?
An intelligent person would note that there’s a teensy-weensy bit of difference between a three-syllable word and a one-syllable word.
One can “proceed backward”, you know.
If “everybody” knew it, then why is it even being debated?
Oh. I see. Because small-minded partisan irrational dickheads can’t be troubled to make valid criticisms of the man, and instead of debating his politics rationally and intelligently, they simply demonize him because such Jerry Springer-level tactics appeal to the bottom of the barrel of humanity… a subgroup to which they belong.
Well, there’s no reason why one couldn’t rant about Bush’s lack of language skills.
Politics aside, bitching about politicians saying stupid things is a legitimate thing, IMHO. I’m sure there plenty of Republicans who cringe at some of GWB’s mispronunciations as well. It’s completely separate from debating the man’s politics.
If you’re saying “Bush is a bad president because he can’t pronounce nuclear”, then yeah, that’s a bad line of reasoning. After all, there’s plenty of policies the man can be rightfully bashed for, without ever having to refer to his language deficiencies. 
You think it’s a three-syllable word?
What you don’t realise, is that Saddam really does Have Noocyular Weapons; his army of evil henchmen have been researching the potentially destructive capacities of Noocyules for many years now, that is why he must be stopped.
…And of course there is no evidence of his research into the properties Noocyules, he’s hiding it because he is evil and we know he is evil because he is secretly researching into Noocyules and hiding it, the evil bastard!
He also stole the word ‘of’ from my post above, that is why he must be stopped.
Neither is Texas, just because we fought on the side of the confederacy doesn’t mean we have the same culture and modes of speech as our southern half-brethren.
In short Texas is Texas.
Uber:
Be a mensch and get over it.
Mensch
Monty’s point on phonotactics is … possible … but I don’t think it’s right. The combination “cl” is not uncommon in initial, medial and final positions in English words; if it wasn’t permitted (even only medially) in Bush’s dialect, this would surely be apparent in other circumstances too. (Does Bush pronounce “unclear” as “uncular”?) Moreover, the “nucular” pronunciation is used by speakers who don’t have a lot of dialectal elements in common - I’m pretty sure I remember Clinton using it, and Clinton sure as heck doesn’t speak the same dialect of American English as Bush.
I wonder if this mispronunciation has some historical roots somewhere; after all, “nuclear” (which, by the by, I pronounce with three syllables “new-klee-uh” [I’m British, and hence non-rhotic]) started life as a moderately obscure technical term; I could see some general in the early Forties not quite getting what a scientist was saying to him, and passing the mispronunciation along, until it became ingrained in the language of policy makers, the “speech community”, in this case, of which Monty speaks. I suppose some people (including myself) find it irritating because it is, after all, a simple seven-letter word, and it doesn’t, really, include (there’s another “cl”) any unusual combinations of speech sounds … there’s no reason for it to be mispronounced. (Or so it seems to me.)
When I was a kid, I lived in Texas. I pronounced the word “nyook-you-ler” (also “illuminous” for “luminous” and various other things).
My grandmother’s Caribbean dialect made her pronounce the word “chaos” as “cha-sos”.
Eventually, both my granny and I discovered our pronunciations were ‘incorrect’ in a wider context, and altered our respective pronunciations accordingly.
Has anyone informed the prez that this pronunciation makes him look like a bozo outside of the dialectical circles in which he moved, and a few linguistics scholars?
Steve, it’s spelled neurotic.
Steve: There’s a bit of difference between the ‘cl’ in ‘unclear’ and ‘nuclear’ even if you pronounce ‘nuclear’ the way it’s pronounced in SAE. For ‘unclear’ the ‘k’ sound in the first word is at the beginning of a syllable and in the second word it’s at the end of a syllable. One doesn’t even have to address the fact of morpheme boundary present in ‘unclear.’
jj: Bush might very well realize that his pronunciations are considered, shall we say, odd by those not used to his dialect. Perhaps he uses that because he believes that the dialect is part of what got him into the White House; i.e, the people like him and that’s part of him. I’ve never asked the man, so I don’t know; however, it is possible.