Author Topic: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc  (Read 22568 times)

Alan W

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(Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« on: November 06, 2008, 10:52:24 AM »
Some interesting comments about pronunciation have been made in the US election thread. Rather than let that thread go completely off-topic, I thought I'd start a new thread.

Regarding quarter, I think "corter" is exactly the way I normally pronounce it, Pat. In fact I was surprised to see that every dictionary seems to give a pronunciation starting with a "kw" sound. I have a feeling that the "corter" pronunciation is quite common here in Aus. I found a couple of sound clips on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation website where the "w" sound is very hard to detect, if it's there at all. How do other Australian forumites say the word?

As regards nuclear, there is a difference between Americans and others in how the first syllable is pronounced: "noo" or "nyoo", but this is not the issue. The issue is whether the "l" sound follows immediately after the "c" sound, or whether there is a "yuh" interpolated, as if the word were "nucular". (I think this pronunciation is fairly uncommon among people following the "British" style of speaking, because it would involve saying "nyoo-kyuh-lar", and the two "y" sounds would not roll off the tongue very easily.)

There's been a lot of discussion recently on the Language Log website about the "nucular" pronunciation. See here, here and here, for example. It seems that this pronunciation is quite widespread, and there's no straightforward pattern in those who use it. One linguist suggests that Jimmy Carter's pronunciation was something like "nukeeuh", and was really a regionally-based dropping of the "l".
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misscreant

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2008, 11:16:28 AM »
Hi, Alan, this is quite interesting, I have an English background, but live in Oz.
I have always pronounced 'quarter' with the 'kw' beginning, but have also pronounced 'nuclear' as 'new cleeah'!! I have also noticed Australians say 'marowan' instead of 'maroon' with the long 'o's, also, many people say 'misscheeveeus' too!
Lately some people,( even newscasters & teachers)have been saying 'pronounciation' instead of 'pronunciation' has anyone else noticed this?

birdy

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2008, 11:21:05 AM »
Whoops - I should have read this before I wrote my last entry in the election thread.

We also have people who say "misscheeveeus" in the U.S., Misscreant, and I think I've been hearing some "mispronounciations" too.

Oh, the demise of standards...(says she, fainting at the thought).

Alan W

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2008, 11:50:50 AM »
The pronunciation of maroon has come up in the forum before, misscreant. Se this topic. It's not a simple case of mispronunciation, because those of us who say "maroan" for the colour still say "maroon" for the verb, as in being marooned on a desert island. The "maroan" pronunciation seems to be unknown outside Australia, but it's not clear whether it varies from state to state within Australia.
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akaboo

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2008, 06:15:48 PM »
Hi Alan & forumites

I'm from Australia but I've never noticed the "corter" (for quarter) pronunciation here, and in fact find it rather amusing. I thought everyone said "kwarter". I'll have to take more notice now and see if I can detect the dropped dubbya (speaking of which, isn't it a great US election result!)
As regards the word "nuclear", the "nucular" pronunciation seems funny to me (straight out of the mouths of Homer Simpson and George W Bush). I feel most Aussies say it with the "l" sound immediately following the "c".

I have a bit of a peeve with the word "February". Most folks nowadays (on TV as well as the average Joe) seem to say "Febry" and it grates on me (how sad am I). Some people just pronounce it as "Feb-u-ary" (not quite as grating!) I think it's my schooling - we were taught to pronounce it as "Feb-ru-ary".

birdy

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2008, 08:00:55 PM »
Now that I'm old-and-grayer (though still aspiring to be a 90-year-old teenybopper), I claim the privilege of complaining about how much better things were in the olden days.

What I've noticed is a decline in clarity/accuracy of speech/language - not just pronunciation, but also enunciation, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary (obviously not a problem on this forum).  There were reasons for all those rules - it allowed people to communicate more accurately and to get their message across with less confusion.  My backward-looking glasses aren't rosy enough for me to claim that everyone was, or even most people were, perfect in their speaking/writing, but teachers really did try to correct errors, and educated people were expected to speak and write "properly".  It was relatively rare that newscasters made grammatical errors, and very very rare that there were such errors in books and magazines - copy editing and proofreading were the norm then.  People seem to communicate in much more vague and less precise ways now - I've seen a lot of really bad memos and staff evaluations, where it is hard to tell what the person means or is trying to say.  And this was true even before the Great Demon Texting arrived.

I assume the US is not alone in this.

pat

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #6 on: November 06, 2008, 08:05:01 PM »
A classic mispronunciation is of the word pronunciation itself, although I think this has as much to do with mis-spelling. How many times have you heard it pronounced 'pronounciation'?!

rogue_mother

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2008, 10:44:01 PM »
Quote
straight out of the mouths of Homer Simpson and George W Bush
akaboo, you forgot to include Jimmy Carter, Nobel Prize winning former president of the United States, trained in nuclear physics, who also mispronounced nuclear.
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akaboo

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2008, 11:48:34 PM »
Thanks rogue_mother - I wasn't aware of Jimmy Carter also mispronouncing "nuclear" - it does seem surprising.

rogue_mother

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #9 on: November 07, 2008, 12:51:37 AM »
Well, I'm only too happy to include Jimmy Carter in the same sentence as Homer Simpson ;) Carter was criticized for it in his presidential years just as much as Bush has been during this go-around.
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rogue_mother

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #10 on: November 07, 2008, 01:03:50 AM »
My earliest memory of becoming aware of pronunciation differences was in third grade, when the teacher insisted on pronouncing the days of the week as Sun-dee, Mon-dee, Tues-dee, instead of the much more normal (to me) Sun-day, Mon-day, Tues-day. I don't remember, though, whether she pronounced the first d in Wednesday, which is pronounced Wenz-day, of course.
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Alonzo Quixote

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #11 on: November 07, 2008, 02:51:41 AM »
birdy,  I could not agree with you more strongly!!!  Amen!!

What I've noticed is a decline in clarity/accuracy of speech/language - not just pronunciation, but also enunciation, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary (obviously not a problem on this forum).  There were reasons for all those rules - it allowed people to communicate more accurately and to get their message across with less confusion.  My backward-looking glasses aren't rosy enough for me to claim that everyone was, or even most people were, perfect in their speaking/writing, but teachers really did try to correct errors, and educated people were expected to speak and write "properly".  It was relatively rare that newscasters made grammatical errors, and very very rare that there were such errors in books and magazines - copy editing and proofreading were the norm then.  People seem to communicate in much more vague and less precise ways now - I've seen a lot of really bad memos and staff evaluations, where it is hard to tell what the person means or is trying to say.  And this was true even before the Great Demon Texting arrived.

Linda

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #12 on: November 07, 2008, 04:31:12 AM »
My husband and I (as our dear(?) Queen loves to say) have been watching 'America's Next Top Model' and can barely understand what some of the girls are saying.  I have come to the conclusion that their enunciation is so poor because they appear to speak without barely opening their mouths! .... except when screaming abuse at each other, that is!!  >:D

pat

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #13 on: November 07, 2008, 05:37:38 AM »
She's not dear to me Linda. I don't know if it's old age, hearing loss or what, but I find these days that if I want to watch an American film on TV I have to activate the sub-titles, otherwise I simply haven't a clue what's going on. The worst example of indistinct dialogue is 24 - some of the characters in that might just as well be talking in a foreign language for all the sense I can make of it.

rogue_mother

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Re: (Mis)pronunciation - nuclear, quarter, etc
« Reply #14 on: November 07, 2008, 06:47:48 AM »
Turnabout is fair play, then, pat! Sometimes we have to use subtitles to get a clue about what people are saying on some of the British films we watch.
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