It might drive us all nuts, but it entered the dictionary as an "acceptable pronunciation" shortly after Carter's presidency. The influence of politics on diction!
Wally -----Original Message----- From: Beth Benoit [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sat 2/8/2003 11:02 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences Cc: Subject: Nu-cu-ler I know this may be a stretch to relate to psychology, but I'll try... Our President drives me absolutely crazy with his continual, embarrassing mispronunciation of "nuclear." There has been much mentioning of it in the press, so it seems hardly likely that he's not aware of it. My husband insists it's a speech defect, which sounds unlikely to me. Who can pronounce "clean," but can't pronounce "nuclear"? Some suggest it's coloquial, which is also bizarre since it doesn't seem to be the case with some of his fellow Texans. My sister, who is not an expert, insists Bush has a learning disability which prevents him from saying it correctly. (But then she pronounced it "nu-cu-lar" also, and hadn't realized it was incorrect, so I rest my case there.) I think it may be a simple case of having not learned it correctly, and finding it difficult to say correctly. When attempting to do so, he must attend to the pronunciation. When trying to give a State of the Union speech, for example, he probably doesn't welcome the cognitive distraction of attending to pronunciation matters. (There's my psychology hook.) Perhaps polls show that many other Americans still pronounce it the way Ike did, and thus it's not worth the effort on Bush's part. Any suggestions? Is there such a thing as a learning disability that makes a person unable to pronounce a particular word? Could it be just a case of Texan stubborness? Beth Benoit University System of New Hampshire --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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