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Re: Yahoo has no staff tech writers

Subject: Re: Yahoo has no staff tech writers
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 19:43:34 -0700


Bonnie Granat wrote:

There is a change of spelling involved in the "mispronounciation" of the
word "nuclear". It doesn't seem to be a regional variant, but a
misapprehension of the word itself.

I think that you're also missing the point. What is correct depends on the era, geography, culture, and even the class of the speaker. The fact that Standard English has the backing of educators in no way makes its conventions the correct ones; it just gives this particular variant a certain amount of power to define itself and other dialects. In fact, from a linguistic viewpoint, the idea of correct usage is meaningless, except in context.

As Dick pointed out, the shift in pronounciation that's involved is very common. It's simply one of the way that English mutates, and all the grammatical Canutes in the world can't keep the tide back. You might as well complain that "nervous" no longer means "energetic" (as it did in the first half of the nineteenth century) or that "gay" no longer means "happy" to most English speakers. It's a losing battle.

Were there such a word in existence as "nucular", I would pronounce it
just like Dubya.

No, you wouldn't. There already is such a word, and you don't. In your dialect (and mine), that's not the way the word is pronounced.

--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield

"Down, set down your liquor and your girl from off your knee;
For the wind has come to say, 'You must take me while you may,
If you'd go to Mother Carey (Walk her round to Mother Carey!)
We're bound to Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!'"
- Rudyard Kipling, "Anchor Song"


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Follow-Ups:

References:
Re: Yahoo has no staff tech writers: From: Dick Margulis
Re: Yahoo has no staff tech writers: From: Bonnie Granat

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