…Then again, perhaps I would be better served by getting nervous about my own literacy.
You don’t think in all his years of education he took a basic chemestry course??? Man, start sharpening your knife and fork. I’ll contact the Bush campaign and let them contact you as to where to mail the saddle.
Glad to have supplied you with a red herring to stretch to the snapping point. Don’t mention it.
It didn’t take the Democrats long to capitalize:
(I hope that worked)
Ah, crap. Anyway, refer to http://www.gore2000.com to see some nifty rat-related campaign buttons and such.
Come on, the guy misprounonces a word, and that makes him an idiot. A lot of very intelligent people I know misspeak words all the time. I knew a very intelligent guy who always said orgasm instead of organism. He obviously knew the difference, but it was just a little tic of his brain, and the more he thought about the word, the more likely it was to come out the wrong way. My brain likes to throw an extra sylable into several words. Vegtable often comes out as veg-it-a-ble. I clearly know how it is supposed to sound, but for some reason when I use it in the middle of a sentence it just slips in there and I feel like an idiot. Seeing as how Bush has handlers around him night and day, I figure it is near impossible that he doesn’t know the correct way to pronounce. Its probably just something that never comes out in the right way.
I think his handlers probably just took it for granted that Dubya KNEW how to pronounce “subliminal.” Cantcha just picture them behind the scenes at the press conference, grimacing and grinding their teeth every time he got it wrong? “Why didn’t you tell him how to pronounce it?” “Huh? Why didn’t YOU tell him how to pronounce it?!?”
The real question is, if that is Gore’s website, why is he selling Bush/Cheney T-shirts? And Bush is the dumb candidate 
?
Would it make you feel any better to learn that the word is spelled “Vegetable”? (and yes, it can be pronounced very similarly to how you spelled it…(copying out of Websters)…vej’i t(upsidedown “e”) bel)
In any case, come on here people. If he constantly pronounced one word wrong, if he didn’t deny(or admitted) that he had dyslexia, if he didn’t keep making utterly boneheaded misreadings, mispronunciations, and misunderstandings of simple words then you might have a case here. But he doesn’t. Face it, the guy is about as bright as a wet match.
Great post there Ukulele Ike, it just about sums up his campaign team’s strategy for the next month.
Anyone see the 60 Minutes II interview with Bush’s “Guru” Olasky? This guy is pissing in Shrub’s ear and telling him that it’s raining. If Dubya is buying even 1% of the drivel that this wonk is spewing, he really must be a drooling idiot. Olasky is trying to distinguish between, *“Freedom For Religion” *and “Freedom From Religion”. Please see my latest thread on this new threat to our Constitution at:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=38281
I personally doubt that Bush ever took anything beyond an introductory chemistry course (or whatever it took to get his breadth requirements). I also doubt that Shrub could describe the physical process of sublimation (i.e., the direct transformation of a substance from solid to vapor phase). Therefore, I find it ludicrous to even think that he would know the word “sublimable”.
This guy is a loose cannon that is shooting off some of the most hilarious malaprops I’ve ever heard. Hilarious that is, until you think of having this nit wit in the Oval Office. More than anything, it reminds me of Homer Simpson saying, “Saxamaphone.” Let’s fry this dumbflock in the election so he can fade back into the woodwork with all the rest of the insect brains.
You have to wonder if Dubya’s handlers are even going to put their stint with Shrub’s election campaign on their resumes.
lissener - Are you always so ugly? Maybe I am just a “newbie” but that doesn’t give you the right. I was upset by your attack and misquoted myself. You know the point of what I was saying and I asked you to provide me with a link if I misquoted Al Gore. You don’t want to debate anything, just insult me. Maybe if you are so much smarter then everyone else you should run for president.
I stand by what I said. Some people always mispronounce certain words and that does not mean they are stupid. Al Gore, and all other presidential candidates past and present, have said stupid things and that doesn’t mean they are idiots. And, I believe that in the United States idiots are not able to rise to such levels of power. There are enough checks in our system to weed out the true idiots out much earlier.
You don’t think he’s even seen dry ice?
It seems like a lot of people are starting with the conclusion as their axiom – G.W. Bush is stupid. Thus, he’s stupid. Y’all are showing yourselves to be real rocket scientists, let me tell you.
If this isn’t how people talk in Texas, why is it these malapropisms, as you call them, were never an issue during his campaigns for Governor?
I’d rather have someone who is as smart as the rest of us, good-old-boy or not, than some snob who think he and mommy government knows what is best for me.
Just because you’ve seen dry ice “melting” doesn’t mean you either understand or know the word sublimation.
Carefully examine your own rocket science before launching.
Well, I give up. Just because you’ve seen water falling in drops from the sky doesn’t mean you either understand or know the word rain either but there you go.
OK, I learned the word sublime in high school chem, but maybe George was just a fan of the rock band by the same name and looked it up?
Who cares?
I’ll be lurking on another thread to see if there are any people who think Gore’s tax cut is better for the country than Bushes.
(I’m voting for Nader anyway)
As a Computer Science student at a major technical institute, who recieved a 5 on the AP Physics B exam and a grade of A in HS chemistry, I can honestly say that I do not have anything beyond the VAGUEST idea of what the word “sublimable” means. To assume that GWB does is a MAJOR stretch.
I like to add a extra 5 syllables to subliminable because each time i try saying it it comes out wrong. Its what you call an accent and insulting someones intelligence because of their debating skills is stupid.(though its not really suprising here)
Probably the reason why Bush’s tortured malaproprisms were never an issue in his elections in Texas is that it is standard operating procedure here to get your job through your dad and his rich friends. Merit has little to do with it so demerits don’t matter either.
. . . .Thank you for the contribution, Mr. Bush.
Stuttering would be one thing, however, as Dubya repeated the word several times, mispronouncing it the same way each time, I think we can rule out a stutter. (Assuming that is what you meant by ‘each time i try saying it it comes out wrong’.)
It’s certainley not what I call an accent, nor does my coworker (who’s from Houston). However, I will say that insulting his intelligence based soley on his repeated and constant mispronounciation is a bit silly. Insulting his intelligence based on the various other boneheaded things that Dubya has done. . . that’s different. 
What, “for” and “from” are synonyms? It’s a genuine distinction, and not understanding it is a lot worse than not knowing what “subliminal advertising” is. There are small ignorances, and then there are stupidities that make one incapable of thinking logically. Equating “for” & “from” is definitely one of the latter.
Yeah, I managed to get a GED without taking a chemistry course as such, and so I could easily get a B.A. without it–I do know what “sublimation” is though, so if I were told that “sublimable” had a chemistry meaning (rather than, say, a psychological or philosophical meaning) I would figure it out–but it’s not a real important word to a non-chemist. red herring.
Anyway, mispronunciation isn’t the big issue you lot make it out to be. Lots of people make malaproppish statements and flub words, whether speaking in public or not. It doesn’t make tham idiots, and it certainly doesn’t mean they’re loose cannons. Others make sure to pronounce every word they use distinctly and correctly, and it doesn’t make them smart.
Have you really paid attention to how Gore speaks? oy! He tries very hard to maximize his speeches’ power, and create a hammer of propagandistic force. If you can see through him, it looks forced, even fake. But a lot of people will be swept up in his apparent passion for what he says.
Bush, on the other hand, is pretty laid-back, & has a different kind of awareness (or lack of awareness) about his ignorance of those things he is not fully expert in, & how to talk about them.
Neither of these guys is a genius, or a master of many subjects. Gore’s problem may be that he wants us to think he is. I’m afraid he’s too high-strung to handle the stress of being President; he may be just nuts enough to go off the deep end and start nuking small countries to appear in control, or he may just piss off every other world leader on multiple levels. In comparison, a laid-back idiot might do less damage.
(Of course, I would rather have Hagelin than either of these schmucks, and so would you. VOTE NATURAL LAW in 2000.)
And another thing: It’s not an accent, it’s a dialect.
Didn’t Mao Zedong speak in a thick Hunan dialect?
Wasn’t Napoleon a Corsican, who had to learn Parisian French as he ascended to primacy?
James I of England was a Scot; &, um… (Good grief, is that all I can think of?)
OK, maybe not the most inspiring examples in history, but anyway, these are people who did rule, who made history, who were not imbeciles–and they came from territories which spoke whole different dialects than those spoken in the respective capitals. (Of course, two of them were revolutionaries, but that’s another discussion.)
How would you like being mocked for spelling “analyze” with a z? Yeah, you, Yank! But yeah, saying “nucular” & “subliminable”, using “basics” with a singular verb–lemme tell ya, I’m from Missouri–that’s just how hicks and cowboys talk! It’s nothing. Now, his disregard for the issue of “subliminal” advertising looks like it could be ignorance of its ostensible* principles, or clumsy disgenuousness. Hmmm. But dropping a “b” in a somewhat unfamiliar word–even a word you’ve heard and read before can be unfamiliar–or even in a familiar word, if you have hick speech patterns, isn’t that big a deal. Though I thought it was, when I was 17 years old and full of myself.
*Yeah, “ostensible”. Don’t believe everything Vance Packard tells you. Although (I haven’t seen this ad, so I’m not sure) this particular ad did seem to be equating “bureaucrats” and “rats”. Hmmm… Actually, that’s fair, I think.