Friday, September 27, 2019

Nukular

It is a non-standard pronunciation, more common in southern and midwestern regions, but it does not brand a person as stupid.  Yesterday Sarah Hoyt chided Jimmy Carter for use of that pronunciation, implying ignorance.  I don't recall whether he did use it.  I do know that Bush 43 did, and so did Eisenhower. All it means is that he heard the word in a local vernacular pronunciation before he read it.  Many pronunciations we consider "wrong" fall into this category.  People read a word they have not yet heard, or don't connect it to a word they have heard.  I heard someone say CHAZm instead of KAZm on a podcast, and the next day heard him wonder whether "homage" was pronounced with the "h" or in a French manner. People who chatter find such things uproariously funny.  I used to do it myself, looking down on a person who referred to something that "Maxx Webber" said. But he had quoted VAY-ber accurately, so it was a ridiculous snobbery on my part.  He had read the man and knew something about his thought.  At the time I had only spoken about him and knew only how to pronounce his name.

It's not necessarily a shame in the other direction either.  To have heard a word in conversation early enough that a local pronunciation is embedded before we are old enough to read it is acceptable, is it not? We do have an idea that people should make an effort to adopt the standard pronunciation. Sometimes, I suppose. I wouldn't make a general rule of it.  I have heard there are PhD's at Oak Ridge who say "nukular." 
In pronouncing nuclear, the second and third syllables are most commonly said as [-klee-er] , a sequence of sounds that directly reflects the spelled sequence ‐cle · ar. In recent years, a somewhat controversial pronunciation has come to public attention, with these two final syllables said as [-kyuh-ler] . Since [-klee-er] , the common pronunciation of ‐cle · ar, might also be represented, broadly, as [-kluh-yer] , the [-kyuh-ler] pronunciation can be seen as coming from a process of metathesis, in which the [l] and the [y] change places. The resulting pronunciation is reinforced by analogy with such words as molecular, particular, and muscular, and although it occurs with some frequency among highly educated speakers, including scientists, professors, and government officials, it is disapproved of by many.
Molecular, particular, and muscular.  I hadn't thought of that.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Molecular, particular, and muscular, however, do not end in -clear. I'm a hillbilly, and I still consider anyone who says "nukular" as not too bright.

Texan99 said...

It bothers me the same way that "joo-lery" "real-ah-tor," and "cal-var-ee" do.

Similarly, it's dim-i-NOO-tion, not dim-yoo-Nish-in.

I don't see it as a question of intelligence, but of carelessness, reversing sounds. I don't go around correcting people, but I assume they have an attitude of "one's thing's as good as another."

Grim said...

They say you should never mock someone who mispronounces an academic word, because you know they learned the word by reading on their own. It's the mark of someone who has educated himself, rather than being presented with an education on a silver platter.

That said, it is embarrassing to realize that you've been using a word you don't know how to pronounce properly. Sometimes people who correct you are doing so to help you avoid looking foolish to others, rather than because they despise you for not being the right class.

When I was a teenager our public high school had a public speaking class that tried hard to educate us out of our Southern accents. It was entirely for our benefit, so we could go forth and prosper in the wider world. It's also a kind of cultural genocide. To this day I have no or almost no accent unless I'm talking to a fellow Southerner, and I say "the-AH-ter" rather than "thEE-AY-ter," and pronounce 'often' with a silent 't.'

But I gave up on trying to pass as a citizen of the world. I'm a citizen of somewhere, or even of 'nowhere' in the sense that Lee Marvin invokes in "Paint Your Wagon"; but not a citizen of everywhere.

Texan99 said...

I say "often" without a "t." That's Southern?

I remember making a co-worker laugh by saying "I don't either" (in the sense of an indignant denial). For a moment, I couldn't think what the more formal or standard English expression would be: "No, I don't." Having grown up in a suburb of a big city with a lot of oil-business transplants from all over, I'm not the most colloquial of speakers, but I guess I do have some South in me.

I think I say "THEE-uht-ur." Would I sometimes say something more like "Thee-AY-tur"? Maybe.

Donna B. said...

I'm more forgiving of errors in pronunciation than I am of errors in writing. I try to be forgiving of both because I make so many errors of both types, but I just can't get past "pour" for "pore". There are others, but that one is most irritating.

Grim said...

I say "often" without a "t." That's Southern?

No, it's the training to speak without a Southern accent. There was a lot of it, actually. Those are just two examples that stick in my head.

When I was young, the Atlanta Journal had a writer called Lewis Grizzard. He had a very fine Southern accent, just what I was educated out of so carefully. You can hear him here.

Donna B. said...

I say "often" with the "t" and I've lived in "the South" for 50 years. However, that first 16 years in Colorado probably determined much of my pronunciation. Until I moved to Huntsville, I was often asked, "where're you from?" because my accent wasn't easily identifiable.

Christopher B said...

If you're willing to accept this as the reason we consider the klee-er pronunciation as educated, then why don't we consider the pronunciation of aluminum as al-you-mini-um to be educated?

Christopher B said...

I think Donna has a good example. Why is pour a homophone for pore, and not pronounced like hour? The idea that klee-er is correct because it pronounces the letters is simply backing into a justification for the social acceptance of one pronunciation over the other.

Texan99 said...

Speaking of colloquialisms, I've been reading a story set in England during WWI, written maybe in the 20s or early 30s, with some American characters whose characteristic speech is a lot of use of "guess," as in "Guess I don't have the upbringing you folks expect." The author being a Brit, he never mentions whether they're from the American North or South.

Texan99 said...

For me "pour" doesn't sound like "pore," though it does sound like "poor." There's more of a long "oo" in pour and poor. But if I'm speaking quickly or carelessly there's not much difference. I also distinguish between "our" and "are."

Some pronunciation differences denote nothing but region, especially differences between English and American. Others suggest differences in education. The only way to tell the difference is to see whether the pattern lines up with geography or education. When a variation first begins it's often both. This isn't a value judgment, only an observation. We all naturally speak the way we hear others speak, and others naturally will vary in both region and education.

In the modern world we're exposed to a much wider variety of speech conventions than almost any of our ancestors were. Nor do we have to rely only on memory and tradition; we have recordings of American speech from 100 years ago and can hear for ourselves how speech has changed. The standard speech of movies and radio from that time doesn't exist in any region any more, or at any level of education or social status. No one is raising kids to imitate it.

No one ever deliberately educated me out of Southernisms that I can recall. I just heard a variety of patterns and picked up a mixture.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Aluminium is British. Historically, neither the British nor the American pronunciation is quite like the original.

The "t" disappeared in "often," then came back as people thought that must be more proper. Same with the "c" in arctic, and the "r" in February. They were gone or nearly gone, then came back as people overcorrected. I learned what were considered the best pronunciations in my youth and then ramped that up with some affectations. My mother's family were sticklers in all usage. I learned to say EE-thur but switched to EYE-thur. I use "shall" more than most Americans. I think there was some defensiveness of I may be a poor kid but I will beat you at your own game. It is my own snobbishness I am chiding here. I used to look down on all those nonstandard pronunciations, but have learned better.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

T99 you bring up an excellent point. There are some sounds that if you were not exposed to them before age five, you simply can't hear them. All three "poors" sound the same to me. When I am being exquisitely careful, I speak a slight variation into "pour" and "poor," ans opposed to "pore" but they are indistinguishable from each other. Usage is easier to change than accent.

RichardJohnson said...

The resulting pronunciation is reinforced by analogy with such words as molecular, particular, and muscular...
I pronounce "particularly" as "pa-tik-you-lee." I have no idea about the regional origin of that.

poor-pour-pore. I tend to pronounced "poor" differently. As in "food." Not always, but probably most of the time.

Growing up in NE with parents from flyover places a thousand miles apart, I was aware of different accents at an early age. In my hometown, there was variation on pronunciation of "r." Non-pronunciation being non-standard. One of my teachers said "badatoh" for "potato."

At state U, I discovered others thought that I and others from my home area spoke with a different accent compared to the rest of the state. Someone from 30 miles away pointed out that I and another home-towner pronounced the "oo" in "roof" with a "u" like in "put", whereas he spoke it like the "oo" in "food." I don't know where that came from.

Childhood accents can be retained or not. My mother and her cousin both married Northerners. My mother's cousin did not lose her accent. My mother lost her accent. I once asked her why. My mother replied that she got tired of total strangers coming up to her, putting their arms around her, and asking, "What part of Texas are you from, honey?" Going the other way, I saw no need to lose my accent. Perhaps because as a child I was very aware of and fond of my partial SW origins, I was comfortable with maintaining ties with both regions.

Roy Lofquist said...

The definitive guide to pronunciation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7FixvoKBw&feature=youtu.be

Donna B. said...

Just want to make it clear that I was referring to written usage of "pour" for "pore" -- that just demonstrates not knowing what either word means. If spoken, I doubt I'd notice. To me, the most noticeable thing about a 'deep' southern accent is the addition of syllables. "Hotel" becomes "hotayul". "Nuclear" is an exception. I hear "nukler" much more often than "nukular". The one somewhat southern accent I can't understand is what I call "deep hillbilly". The speech is rapid and simultaneously clipped and mumbled. That's the way my maternal grandfather spoke and the only thing he said that I understood clearly was "Amen". He was 76 when I was born and we lived far away, so I didn't get to spend enough time around him to decipher his accent.

Sam L. said...

I grew up in the midwest, and was later assigned to a Minuteman missile wing. Nukes, we called them, with no "ular" or "lear" to follow. After 20 years in the AF, I pretty much accept how ever people pronounce words I know.

Texan99 said...

I say "roof" with the medium "u" as in "put."

It's a coin-toss whether I'll pronounce "route" with an "ow" as in "cow" or an "oo" as in "pool." Unless it's "Route 66," in which case it seems obvious I should say "root," for some reason.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

"Route 66" is a proper name in itself. It has both a song and a TV show to teach the pronunciation.

james said...

I think I tend to adjust my pronunciation of route to match whatever most folks around me use.

As for nuclear--we have researchers from all over. Their English, however jaw-cracked, is better than my Chinese or Hungarian (which you can safely stick in your eye). Unless there's ambiguity, nobody seems to bother to correct pronunciations.

Tom Bridgeland said...

I'm a nurse. Constantly hear various pronunciations of common drugs. The doctors, nurses, everyone has their individual pronunciations. Same for common procedures and body parts. Patients are far worse, and it's a guessing game trying to figure out what pills they take at home.