Dear All, I have been thinking some more about the issues of spelling and pronunciation that I posted here yesterday (copy below).
It occurred to me that one of the primary areas of solid resistance to metrication comes from the journalistic community. On this list, it is somewhat excusable for common folk not to get SI precisely right, but we really get excited when a journalist gets it wrong. we tend to believe that the media should know better and get it right 100 % of the time. However, consider some of the impediments that lay in the path of working journalists. 1 They are trained in the linguistic tradition that you can look up a word in a dictionary to get a 'correct' definition. 2 Dictionaries always describe the way words were used in the past; they do not prescribe definitions -- they only offer past descriptions. 3 Dictionaries only contain descriptions of the most popularly used words; they do not contain definitions of little used words. For a recent example, when some scientists found that they could measure time in attoseconds recently, it threw the media into a frenzy of creating millionths or billionths and trillionths of quadrillionths (or some-such) to try to explain the word, attometre, that does not appear in their dictionaries because it has not been used enough yet to appear on the linguistic radar. 4 Spelling checkers are based on dictionaries. This means that Kilometre will be a 'correct' word if the dictionary writers see it misspelt often enough. If spell checkers were based on standards, such as those written by the the Bureau International de Poids et Mesures (BIPM) then we could be assured that we were getting it right (see http://www.bipm.org/ ) but it is most unlikely that a journalist would visit the BIPM site.. 5 Journalists become journalists because they are identified early in their primary school years as 'good at writing' without them also carrying the corollary 'bad at sums'. I have personally met a number of journalists who are afraid of numbers of any kind; one of them admitted to me that he gets physically nauseous if he has to do a story with 'lots of numbers', and I know others who will avoid or circumvent any numbers whenever they can. 6 The number problem becomes highly focussed for those who work in public relations in a scientific or technical environment such as NASA. (NASA journalists and public relations staff badly and urgently need basic training in metric and SI units.) Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. You can subscribe by sending an email containing the words subscribe Metrication matters to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- on 16/3/04 6:31 AM, John Hynes at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I recently heard a discussion on BBC World radio news service regarding the > pronunciation of "kilometre." A listener sent a complaint about BBC > announcers stressing the second syllable. The BBC commentators sited a > survey showing that this pronunciation is now common in the UK. They went > on to say that since there is no body in England which defines correct usage > of English and that since it is a living language, that therefore whatever > is commonly spoken can be considered correct usage. > > Is there any official rule from SI or anywhere else regarding the > pronunciation of "kilometre?" > > John Hynes > San Mateo, CA Dear John and All, The problem of standards with respect to spelling and pronunciation arises from the approach to this subject taken by professional linguists. These folk firmly believe that spelling and pronunciation are set in place by popular usage. They seem to be quite unaware of their own place in setting usage standards both in spelling and pronunciation. If the majority of a population spell color without a 'u', then that is the 'correct' spelling (say in the USA); if the majority of people spell colour with a 'u', them that is the correct spelling (say in the UK); if some people spell color and some people spell colour (say in Australia), then linguists will reserve their judgement until a popular consensus is reached -- this may take hundreds of years. Linguists operate on the principle, which was set by the writers of the Oxford English Dictionary at its foundation, of working 'On Historical Principles' as this refers to the way they work by citing references to the way words have been used in the past; this applies to both spelling and pronunciation. Problems arise when we lesser mortals go to a dictionary to find the 'right' or 'correct' answer to a spelling or pronunciation problem. Linguists have no intention, and they never had any intention, of providing us with a 'right' or 'correct' answer, they simply supply us with erudite knowledge about the history of the word or phrase. To a linguist, a survey can be a satisfactory basis for describing how a word was popularly used in the past, therefore it fits the 'On Historical Principles' method that they commonly use. A linguist's approach to 'standard' language has nothing to do with a standards writer's approach to writing standard words (such as kilometre), standard symbols (such as ML for megalitre), or standard procedures (such as the dust content of the air). The definition of a standard by a standards writer is absolutely opposed to the description of a standard by a linguist. The two groups are trying to achieve opposite ends of the same scale; the standards writers are seeking uniformity while the linguists are actively supporting and encouraging diversity. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. You can subscribe by sending an email containing the words subscribe Metrication matters to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
