# Who decides “proper” pronunciation? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 2, 2025, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111 "2025-06-02T18:12:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**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:** [June 3, 2025, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/141 "2025-06-03T20:30:19Z")
Oh, OK, it’s not an idiom then, but merely a figure of speech. I thought you were saying you had only encountered the US ‘could care less’ version. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/142 "2025-06-03T20:30:34Z")
OTTOMH In Are You Being Served Again, we know Mr Moleturd is an illiterate hick immediately by his rustic accent. David Prowse wore the Darth Vader suit and spoke the lines during filming. Lucas always planned to dub in someone else’s voice. Prowse also has a rustic accent. People on the set called him Darth Farmer. Obviously Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks fluent German. Another actor provided his lines for the German dub of The Terminator. Once again, when Schwarzenegger speaks German he has a very hillbilly accent. Studio executives didn’t think any body would take the character seriously with that accent. Finally, a documentary I have not seen yet. The film Do I Sound Gay? Is all about the ‘gay accent’ . Obviously the main reason people would cover that accent is safety. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/143 "2025-06-03T20:32:19Z")
Hmm, I guess. I don’t think I understand the difference there. Someone could say “I couldn’t care less” for the first time and everyone would understand them, but if they said “Head over heels in love”, it would be hard to get without the history. I think of “head over heels” as a figure of speech or an idiom, but I’m not clear about the difference. ETA: Just read the rest of your post. I loathe the “could care less” version. ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/144 "2025-06-03T20:38:09Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > It’s spelled “forte,” but it’s pronounced “throatwobbler mangrove.” That’s mangrové ---
**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:** [June 3, 2025, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/145 "2025-06-03T20:45:27Z")
Maybe not a figure of speech then, but I mean ‘couldn’t care less’ is a phrase that people say because it’s a common/established phrase - they’re not just pulling words out of their brain on the fly to express their feeling - they’re choosing to use an established form of words they have heard before - it has a literal meaning, but it’s a ready-made phrase - what’s the right term for that? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/146 "2025-06-03T20:48:17Z")
I’m no linguist. I guess I would call it a common phrase (phraseus commonae in Latin). ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/147 "2025-06-03T20:55:00Z")
What I found in print about “could care less.” Going from memory, so my dates might be a little off. It seems to have sprung out of “I couldn’t care less” (no surprise), in which case, the negation comes as an auxiliary verb. Then, sometime in the late 1940s, maybe, you started seeing the phrase “No one” or "Nobody could care less than [whatever]. It still had the negative connotation but had moved from the verb to the subject. Then, sometime in the mid 1950s to late 1950s you started seeing the same meaning, but sometimes rendered as “I/He/She could care less.” The explicit negation had been dropped, but the meaning of “I don’t care” remained. My first noticing it in a TV or movie was @1968, so by that time it had obtained a certain amount of currency. The notion that “could care less” meaning “I could, but I don’t” just doesn’t jibe with the history of the usage that I encountered in my research–but I’ll be the first to say I’m not the final authority on it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/148 "2025-06-03T20:59:25Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Is there anywhere that people care about what other people think of their accent? Yes, it’s called England. > [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > It seems to have sprung out of “I couldn’t care less” (no surprise), in which case, the negation comes as an auxiliary verb. Then, sometime in the late 1940s, maybe, you started seeing the phrase “No one” or "Nobody could care less than [whatever]. It still had the negative connotation but had moved from the verb to the subject. I 've always just assumed that it was short for “As if I could care less” or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/149 "2025-06-03T21:06:31Z")
My North Carolina aunt used to pronounce weekend with the accent on the second syllable (week-END). ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/150 "2025-06-03T21:11:56Z")
Very British of her. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/151 "2025-06-03T21:15:43Z")
That reminds me of [this bit](https://youtu.be/4KBAXMpklDU?t=94s) from Downton Abbey, (“What is a week-end?”) ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/152 "2025-06-03T21:32:11Z")
Language Log offered up (IMO) a **[convincing theory](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001209.html)** back in 2004: —————— _Could care less_ probably lost its “not” by means of a process that John Lawler has called “negation by association”. … This process starts out with intensification of negation by providing a minimal object: > I won’t move → I won’t move an inch. > He hasn’t eaten. → He hasn’t eaten a bite. > They didn’t drink. → They didn’t drink a drop. > She doesn’t owe you. → She doesn’t owe you a red cent. The general idea is that X won’t VERB anything at all, not even a tiny little Y. For this to work, the object has to evoke a scale of degrees of VERBing, and so many of these objects are really adverb-like measure phrases. An analogous process applies with minimal adverbs of various sorts: > I won’t stop for an instant. > She won’t put up with the tiniest slight. …. The case of “could care less” is a bit more complicated. “Don’t care” is intensified by the modal _could_ in combination with the degree adverbial _less:_ > I don’t care. > I don’t care even a tiny bit. > I couldn’t care less (than I do). = _“I care so little that there is no careable amount that is less”_. The structure is more complicated, but the general method of intensification is essentially the same – to insist on the minimality of the degree of caring. The next step is then similar to the loss of _ne_ in French _ne…pas,_ except that the pattern in which the original negation can be lost involves the discontinuous pattern _could…care less_ as well as a negation. The process has been generalized to give with a variety of MSOs (“minimal scatological objects”): > I could give a {damn|shit|hoot|(flying) fuck|crap|rat’s ass} ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/153 "2025-06-03T21:58:34Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Did you mean to write “I could care less”? Yes. > [@RitterSport](#): > > I think of an idiom as a statement that doesn’t make sense if you take it literally. That’s one possible meaning, but Merriam-Webster gives a second. > grammatically atypical use of words (such as _give way_) And I love this ending. > And if you can’t get past some people continuing to use _could care less_, and the fact that there’s nothing you can do about it, you may console yourself with the notion that at least they are not saying “I could care fewer.” ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/154 "2025-06-03T22:14:38Z")
Haha! I would fall over dead. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/155 "2025-06-03T22:17:15Z")
Modern linguistics began in 1912 with the publication of _Course in General Linguistics_ by Ferdinand de Saussure. Before then linguists tried to fit the grammar/pronunciation/sentence structure of a language that they had just discovered into grammar/pronunciation/sentence structure of Latin and Classic Greek. They considered Latin and Classic Greek the perfect languages which you could use to analyze any other language. Saussure taught that any new language not yet analyzed could have a completely different structure than Latin/Classic Greek. Also, before Saussure, the main job of linguists was understanding how languages evolved over time. Saussure believed that it was necessary to first understand how each language worked at a single time. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/156 "2025-06-03T23:31:13Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’m loudly anti-prescriptivist so you can chalk the sarcasm off to my biases. I will only note that books by actual linguists sneer at prescriptivists in the same way, or somewhat more polite ways. They have for decades. Over thirty years ago one of Steven Pinker’s first books explained in detail why “I couldn’t care less” is a perfectly good idiom, but you still find threads on this site that have posters slamming it. We’ve had arguments about prescriptivism before and I’ve since moderated my position somewhat, to the extent that I can say that I largely agree with your entire post. But I do want to note a few things. I think it’s inappropriate to regard prescriptivism as necessarily some arbitrary “nonsense” that is opposed to natural descriptivism. Descriptivism is an empirical science that studies language, while good, constructive prescriptivism is more of an art that strives to promote order, consistency, and, yes, even elegance in the use of language. The difference between descriptivism and constructive prescriptivism is essentially the difference between science and art – both are noble in their own way. Pinker himself wrote a book, _The Sense of Style_, which is essentially prescriptive and which, moreover, necessarily assumes a firm grasp of standard English as a baseline starting point. Also, neither Pinker nor any other linguist that I know of simply accepts some novel or non-standard usage as correct just because a lot of people say it that way; rather, they justify it with arguments from the prescriptivist’s toolbox by trying to show how the usage actually conforms with established rules rather than breaking them. Pinker argues, for instance, that “I could care less” (which I presume is what you meant to quote) is a form of deliberate sarcasm. I find this completely unpersuasive, and firmly believe that it’s a solecism that arose from a mishearing of the original expression. I have more sympathy with Pinker’s argument in support of a sentence like “Me and Alice are going to see a movie”. Here he argues that there’s no ironclad rule that says that the case or number of the individual components of a noun phrase have to agree with the case or number of the phrase as a whole. This one I’m inclined to agree with, especially since it’s such common usage. Finally, I will note that linguists like Pinker, Liberman, and Pullum who write “sneeringly” about prescriptivism are generally writing about an outmoded version of it, not what I refer to as the modern constructive kind. I would also note that their sneering is done with impeccable grammatical correctness. ---
**Author:** ![Steven\_Maven](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steven_maven/32/3272_2.png) [@Steven\_Maven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_Maven)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/157 "2025-06-04T00:05:57Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > My 7th grade English teacher said it should be “fort” … because it’s based on French … > > fortay, because what’s what people say “Fort” is indeed from French and is the “official” pronunciation for “strength.” However if “EVERYONE” is pronouncing it incorrectly, that is a paradox. “Fortay” is from Italian and is used in music to mean “loud.” So if you are a musician who is really good at playing loudly, then “fortay” is your “fort.” ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/158 "2025-06-04T00:23:04Z")
> [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > “Fortay” is from Italian and is used in music to mean “loud.” So if you are a musician who is really good at playing loudly, then “fortay” is your “fort.” This guy? [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DnTrF4qt2iM/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AH-BIAC4AOKAgwIABABGH8gVCgnMA8=&rs=AOn4CLBp-T1CrSNWPBU2XTr-JsfRIcL9zA "Frank Black - "The Man Who Was Too Loud"") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnTrF4qt2iM) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/159 "2025-06-04T00:29:00Z")
I don’t disagree with you to any great extent either. I do think we put emphasis on different aspects of the language, especially change. > [@wolfpup](#): > > I would also note that their sneering is done with impeccable grammatical correctness. That’s true, but in a way it gets to the heart of the different stances. Descriptivists generally argue for acceptance of non-standard usage in less than formal settings. I would claim that they themselves are usually well-versed in the language and probably have training in standard usages and know that the audience they want to persuade would sneer, to use your word, at any deviation from the standard, weakening their cases. It’s sure true here. I have to be as formal and precise as possible to not be dismissed as someone who simply lacks knowledge. My pancakes have to be laden with erudite syrup, so to speak. The [Merriam-Webster page](https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/could-couldnt-care-less) I cited earlier contains some history of the phrases and lists several possible origins for the “could care less” variant, including both sarcasm and lack of education, without coming to any conclusion. It’s an interesting and short read. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/160 "2025-06-04T01:28:18Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > The last time i remember that happening is when i learned that debris and d’bree were the same word. A podcaster I listen to uses the word _debris_ occasionally, but he thinks it’s plural and pronounces the “s” accordingly. “There were a lot of debris on the ground”. “They looked at the other piece of debri.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111.md?page=9)