# Nuclear vs "Nucular" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 5, 2001, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946 "2001-12-05T01:43:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gingersnap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f04885/32.png) [@gingersnap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gingersnap)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/1 "2001-12-05T01:43:15Z")
Just heard it again. Another politican on TV talking about the threat of “nucular” war. Can’t they read? There is no “u” after the “c” in the word. I mean, where did this start? I swear I hear the word mis-pronounced “nucular” almost as much as I hear it said right. ---
**Author:** ![Catalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@Catalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catalyst)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/2 "2001-12-05T01:48:22Z")
Grr, argh, I can’t stand that! Makes me want to [insert rant here] . . . . ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/3 "2001-12-05T01:53:47Z")
You say tomato I say tomato. Let’s just hope they get their facts straight. ---
**Author:** ![Poloin99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Poloin99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poloin99)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/4 "2001-12-05T01:55:22Z")
I would just like to say that the media should not even talk about a nuclear threat. The only reason they do it is for ratings. They may achieve ratings however at the cost of scaring the public. What idiots! ---
**Author:** ![gingersnap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f04885/32.png) [@gingersnap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gingersnap)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/5 "2001-12-05T02:02:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Reeder \* > **You say tomato I say tomato.** But it’s not the same. Those are different pronunciations of a word, but with all the letters in the same place. In mis-pronouncing nuclear as “nucular”, they are mangling the word’s spelling as well as its pronunciation. Again, can’t they read? ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/6 "2001-12-05T02:14:51Z")
But you know what they are saying…so in the long run does it really matter? ---
**Author:** ![Etaoin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c2a13f/32.png) [@Etaoin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Etaoin)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/7 "2001-12-05T02:46:46Z")
They are invoking the spirit of John Kennedy. It’s like quoting Lincoln. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/8 "2001-12-05T03:20:09Z")
If the worst thing you can say about your politicians is that they mispronounce a word, then I’d venture to say that we’ve got some damn fine leaders. ---
**Author:** ![jaimest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/48db29/32.png) [@jaimest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaimest)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/9 "2001-12-05T03:34:12Z")
I think Dan Quayle pronounced it more like “New-clear” or “Nuke Lear” (as in King Lear"). He had a way of getting rid of inconvenient e’s, only to add them where they were not needed on words like “potato”. Very effecient fellow, that Quayle. [http://www.mbcnet.org/debateweb/html/history/1988/video.htm](http://www.mbcnet.org/debateweb/html/history/1988/video.htm) Includes “You’re no Jack Kennedy” line, and Quayle words like “Pres’dent” and “'sperience”… ---
**Author:** ![Billy\_Rubin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billy_rubin/32/3622_2.png) [@Billy\_Rubin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billy_Rubin)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/10 "2001-12-05T03:50:15Z")
My uncle was an engineer at a nuclear plant. On his desk, there was a sign that said: “People who say Nucular not allowed beyond this point” Jimmy Carter used it all the time- drove me nuts! Might be why I became a libertarian. b. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/11 "2001-12-05T04:15:53Z")
Don’t you wish it were that easy. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/12 "2001-12-05T04:33:50Z")
“I’m goin’ down to the lie-bare-y to see a fil-um about nucular war” ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/13 "2001-12-05T05:26:33Z")
> [@](#): > > Now, when we add -al/ar to a > word or stem, certain changes regularly take place. If the stem ends in > a consonant plus ‘l’, a vowel is inserted before the ‘l’: carbuncle > /karbunkl/ - carbuncular, circle /sirkl/ - circular, etc. What appears > to have happened here is that instead of a rather strange stem /nukli/, > where the insertion of the ‘u’ would not take place since the ‘l’ is not > at the end of the stem, the stem has been reformed by a process similar > to ‘folk etymology’, and we end up with the stem /nukl/, which will quite > naturally give us ‘nucular’, just like ‘circular’. [http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-1997.5/msg00358.html](http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-1997.5/msg00358.html) ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/14 "2001-12-05T05:27:02Z")
I know a PhD in Nuclear Engineering who pronounces it “nuke-u-ler”. It amazes me that no one corrected him in 8 years of schooling… ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/15 "2001-12-05T05:28:31Z")
Can we have that in english? ---
**Author:** ![epraz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/82dd89/32.png) [@epraz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epraz)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/16 "2001-12-05T05:38:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Anthracite \* > \*\*I know a PhD in Nuclear Engineering who pronounces it “nuke-u-ler”. It amazes me that no one corrected him in 8 years of schooling… \*\* He knows what he means, you know what he means, Semantic mission accomplished! ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/17 "2001-12-05T05:40:26Z")
Bibliophage’s quote suggests that people regularise. If most words follw the circle/circ_ular_ form some people will be tempted to apply it to “nuc”. A similar thing happens with the economist _Keynes_ and the types of economics named after him _Keynesian_ economics. People are much less likely these days to read a book by Keynes, so they only come accross the word Keynesian. More and more people are pronouncing it like _Indonesian_. And yes, it sends me birko. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/18 "2001-12-05T06:05:38Z")
Key-Knee-Zee-En? What the bloody blue f\*\*k is the world coming to? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/19 "2001-12-05T06:34:08Z")
According to Robert A. Heinlein, the mispronouncing of “nuclear” began with the Eisenhower administration. IIRC, his Secretary of Defense was the one responsible for butchering the word. Naturally, the rest of America has to follow. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946/20 "2001-12-05T12:28:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Reeder \* > \*\*You say tomato I say tomato. Let’s just hope they get their facts straight. \*\* “You say Potato, I say Poatoto” would perhaps be a closer analogy 😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-vs-nucular/96946.md?page=2)