Corpse: only the E is Silent.

Posted by rj caster on February 5, 2010 · 1 Comment 

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I don’t mean to dwell on such minutiae, really.  However, considering the amount of flack that Former President Bush (43) received over how he pronounced “nuclear,” in what can be considered journalistic fairness, we will look into the same matter with current President Obama.

Some people have difficulties framing certain words a certain way (which tends to be the way others may pronounce them).  Sometimes we just can’t seem to get a word right because of our speaking abilities, our accents, or perhaps a good old fat tongue.  This can lead to real problems for some people, just ask the Ephraimites in the Book of Judges:

In the story, two Semitic tribes, the Ephraimites and the Gileadites, have a great battle. The Gileadites defeat the Ephraimites, and set up a blockade across the Jordan River to catch the fleeing Ephraimites who were trying to get back to their territory. The sentries asked each person who wanted to cross the river to say the word shibboleth. The Ephraimites, who had no sh sound in their language, pronounced the word with an s and were thereby unmasked as the enemy and slaughtered. (The Story of Shibboleth)

I would recommend that you go to a number of your friends, and hear which ones properly pronounce the month Fe-brew-air-ee instead if Fe-byou-air-ee.  So picking on people for pronouncing words is a bit childish, but the left made it a part time occupation during Bush’s eight years, as did popular shows like my two personal favorites The Simpsons and Family Guy.  This all tied into the “Bush is Stupid” mantra, and Bush supporters gritted their teeth and said “back off” or perhaps even joined in on the linguistic fun. 

Slate.com’s Kate Taylor wrote an article entitled “Why Does Bush Go Nucular?” in which she gives a half-hearted defense of the President’s pronunciation of the word:

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.”