Re: Yahoo has no staff tech writers

["Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- editors-writers -dot- info>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Byfield" <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Cc: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 10:43 PM
Subject: Re: Yahoo has no staff tech writers


>
> 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.
>

I think that you've missed the point I was trying to make. This is not a
variant pronunciation issue at all.
Ask any of these mispronouncers how "nuclear" is spelled, and I believe
that they will misspell it.


> 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.

As I have explained already, they are not producing a variant
pronunciation -- they are pronouncing another word entirely.

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.
>

We are not talking about the evolution of meaning, Bruce. This is way
off the point.


> > 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.
>

I disagree. I think these folks just need to learn how to spell the word
and then learn how to say it.

I have thus far heard no convincing evidence to support the notion that
transposing letters in a word is a regional dialect. It just is not what
dialects *do*. Dialects manifest themselves in strictly pronunciation
issues -- NOT in spelling issues. No dialectic pronunciation of a word
is heard to be SPELLED differently to a nondialect speaker. But
"nucular" moves the "l" and adds a "u". You don't find that in dialects.
The word SOUNDS different to our ear, but when we hear that different
sound, we do not get from it a different SPELLING (as we do in the
present case).

Bonnie Granat
http://www.editors-writers.info






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