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homestead - Re: [Homestead] our prez-Nuclayer, nuclear, or just nuke the whole damn thing.

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  • From: SJC <indexer AT localnet.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] our prez-Nuclayer, nuclear, or just nuke the whole damn thing.
  • Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:38:45 -0400

Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

The 'mispronounce' bit is regional or cultural elitism.

Not too regional. Or too cultural. I have lived and taught in both public and private schools and tutored homeschool students, all where German was the first language and in public and private schools where English was the first language, in northern Canada, the Canadian maritimes, the midwest and the north and south east parts of this country. I was born and raised in Indiana but since English is not my first language I've all my life been listening.... One of the words I've most commonly heard corrected is the word in question: nuclear. The pronunciation Bush uses certainly seems to me to simply be a common-across-the-board mispronunciation. And obviously it grates on the ears of many, in numerous regions and cultures, from Inuit to Virginia watermen.

It's a totally different pronunciation from what my next door neighbor in southern Virginia (bred and born and raised in western Virginia and lived all adult life in Tidewater) called "southern slushtalk". If you listen to Bush himself pronounce it you'll hear what he says. Doesn't sound southern. Or northern. Or anything else. Just sounds like he needs to go look up how the word is spelled.

Susan Jane, in Maine




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