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RE: Why Does Bush Go "Nucular"? (MSN)
I suppose our next step is to write Webster and ask that they include the
word "nuculus" so that those of us in the scientific world would understand
where the term "nucular" comes from...just a thought (and hopefully nothing
more than that).
Greg Gibbons
-----Original Message-----
From: Bjorn Cedervall [mailto:bcradsafers@HOTMAIL.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 8:51 PM
To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: FYI: Why Does Bush Go "Nucular"? (MSN)
Here we go again (see below):
My personal initiatve only,
Bjorn Cedervall bcradsafers@hotmail.com
-----------
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2071155
Why Does Bush Go "Nucular"?
By Kate Taylor
Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2002, at 3:29 PM PT
When speaking about nuclear weapons, George W. Bush invariably pronounces
the word "nucular." Is this an acceptable pronunciation?
Not really. Changing "nu-clee-ar" into "nu-cu-lar" is an example of what
linguists call metathesis, which is the switching of two adjacent sounds.
(Think of it this way: "nook le yer" becomes "nook ye ler.") This switching
is common in English pronunciation; you might pronounce "iron" as "eye yern"
rather than "eye ron." Why do people do it? One reason, offered in a usage
note in the American Heritage Dictionary, is that the "ular" ending is
extremely common in English, and much more common than "lear." Consider
particular, circular, spectacular, and many science-related words like
molecular, ocular, muscular.
Bush isn't the only American president to lose the "nucular" war. In his "On
Language" column in the New York Times Magazine in May 2001, William Safire
lamented that, besides Bush, at least three other presidents-Eisenhower,
Carter, and Clinton-have mangled the word.
In fact, Bush's usage is so common that it appears in at least one
dictionary. Webster's, by far the most liberal dictionary, includes the
pronunciation, though with a note identifying it as "a pronunciation variant
that occurs in educated speech but that is considered by some to be
questionable or unacceptable." A 1961 Webster's edition was the first to
include "nucular"; the editors received so many indignant letters that they
added a usage note in the 1983 version, pointing out its "widespread use
among educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors,
congressmen, U.S. cabinet members, and at least one U.S. president and one
vice president." They even noted its prominence among "British and Canadian
speakers."
These days, Webster's sends every reader who fusses about "nucular" a
defensive, 400-word response letter. Click here to read it.
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