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Conserving the English language
Sep. 19th, 2008 10:56 amMatisse posted a rant today on Palin's mispronunciations of the words "nuclear" and "verbiage." While I agree that Palin is guilty of egregiously mispronouncing words, what first came to mind when I read Matisse's words was: "oh no! Don't draw attention to that!"
Why? Because it's my belief that the more attention you focus on Dubya-like malapropisms ("misunderestimate," "resignate," "vulcanize") and grammatical weirdness ("put food on your family!") the more people start to internalize those same assaults on the English language.
I have a nightmare: one day, I will open a dictionary one day and find that "nuclear" is actually alternately pronounced "nuke-you-lar."
The problem isn't actually just that mangling words makes me grumpy. (And it does. It really does). It's that when you change words, you move them away from their original meaning and conflate different shades of meaning into the definition of the word.
For example, let's take "nuclear," since that's the word that's coming around to bite us these days. When you pronounce it "nucular" rather than "nuclear, you remove the association of the word "nucleus" out from "nuclear."
Instead you've turned it into "nuke-you-lar." Subconsciously, the "nuke you" part of "nucular" sounds like an aggressive phrase. That means that when we collectively talk about "nuclear energy," we're not just talking about harnessing the energy from splitting the atom. We're associating nuclear energy with about a violent, uncontrollable force. That changes how we talk about fueling energy. Oil and coal sound much less threatening than nuke bombs -- whether or not nuclear power is a better longterm, more renewable source of energy.
Or let's take Dubya's "vulcanize." According to Dubya, racial quotas "vulcanize" (Balkanize) society. So now, instead of just talking about Balkanizing (fracturing) society, you're talking about "Vulcans" or maybe "vultures" somewhere. That means you have not just an association of the Balkans with splintered society, but also with vultures.
And you can keep doing that with other malapropisms - the changed words add their own layers of meaning. That's not so good.
Why? Because it's my belief that the more attention you focus on Dubya-like malapropisms ("misunderestimate," "resignate," "vulcanize") and grammatical weirdness ("put food on your family!") the more people start to internalize those same assaults on the English language.
I have a nightmare: one day, I will open a dictionary one day and find that "nuclear" is actually alternately pronounced "nuke-you-lar."
The problem isn't actually just that mangling words makes me grumpy. (And it does. It really does). It's that when you change words, you move them away from their original meaning and conflate different shades of meaning into the definition of the word.
For example, let's take "nuclear," since that's the word that's coming around to bite us these days. When you pronounce it "nucular" rather than "nuclear, you remove the association of the word "nucleus" out from "nuclear."
Instead you've turned it into "nuke-you-lar." Subconsciously, the "nuke you" part of "nucular" sounds like an aggressive phrase. That means that when we collectively talk about "nuclear energy," we're not just talking about harnessing the energy from splitting the atom. We're associating nuclear energy with about a violent, uncontrollable force. That changes how we talk about fueling energy. Oil and coal sound much less threatening than nuke bombs -- whether or not nuclear power is a better longterm, more renewable source of energy.
Or let's take Dubya's "vulcanize." According to Dubya, racial quotas "vulcanize" (Balkanize) society. So now, instead of just talking about Balkanizing (fracturing) society, you're talking about "Vulcans" or maybe "vultures" somewhere. That means you have not just an association of the Balkans with splintered society, but also with vultures.
And you can keep doing that with other malapropisms - the changed words add their own layers of meaning. That's not so good.
