In the following brief essay, Dean Bartkiw argues that Americans ought focus on substantive issues, rather than the verbal blunders some politicians make while on the stump.
-- Tim Machesney
... BUT BY THE CONTENT OF THEIR IDEAS
by Dean Bartkiw
SOMETIMES AS I SIT and listen to superficial criticisms of certain politicians, I can’t help but wonder if those who criticize are consistent. George Bush has been a favorite target of amateur linguists since he was Governor of Texas. His infamous use of the word “nucular” is repeated ad nauseam in almost every debate I have with friends.
Schwarzenegger was next. Many Democrats were heard mimicking his pronunciation of “California”. And now Bush has apparently committed another faux pas (although, I pronounce “Nevada” like he does, AND I LIVE THERE).
So, do these people who focus on our language and its variants spend any time criticizing Al Sharpton for using “axe” in place of “ask?” Do they criticize Jesse Jackson for creating words like “tolerize?” Did they criticize Arnold’s Hispanic opponent for Governor for his accent? I think we all know the answer to these questions.
Let’s not focus on ridiculous variations in language and culture. Let’s focus on issues – shall we?
Mr. Bartkiw has his own Web log at www.truthbomb.com.
Absolutely true. I couldn't agree more. I get tired of these stupid, shallow attacks on a politician's pronunciation and/or spelling. We had a President once who pronounced Cuba "Cuber" and pronounced Laos to rhyme with "chaos". President Kennedy. And I've read that President Truman was a bad speller. Every President in our history has come from some region of the country where those living in other regions think they talk funny. That includes Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. How many politicians -- how many people, including journalists -- ever do actually pronounce and spell every word they speak and write according to the Oxford English Dictionary and in perfect syntax? So what? _I_ judge them by the contents of their ideas. Good ideas. Bad ideas. Einstein probably pronounced California with a German accent, too, having fled from the land of Hitler -- and Beethoven. Ayn Rand pronounced everything in a heavy Russian accent. Jacques Cousteau prounounced everything with a French accent, but nobody thereby discredits his oceanography.
And speaking of the bad ideas, that superficiality lets those with the bad ideas off the hook. It implies that, e.g., the worst you could have said of Quayle was that he misspelled "potato". _I_ hate him for the things he _advocated_ -- and I'd despise him no less if he had spelled and pronounced everything according to the OED and with perfect syntax.
I find the whole "nucular" criticism tiresome and unwarranted. My personal (and unscientific) research shows it to be more regionalism than malapropism. One has to go no further than Jimmy Carter to hear the same pronunciation and none dare discredit him; after all he's a nucular ingineer.
This does not dispute the content of your ideas, but for the record, "Arnold's Hispanic opponent" (Cruz Bustamante) does not have an "Hispanic" accent that I could discern, except when he is pronouncing the names of cities with Spanish names or Spanish words that have been adopted by English. This is more of an affect than an accent, though.
Can we also give Evil Dean a pass on the whole Soviet Union vs. Russia thing?
Yours,
Wince
Certain self-nominated "elites" see themselves in the role of British aristocracy of the early 1800s...perhaps this is behind the obsession with accents...can't have Cockneys in the club, you know. This theory would also explain the prevalence of English and pseudo-English accents on PBS and NPR.
People make a lot of noise about this peripheral stuff, then hypocritically vote on issues.
Blog commentor M.Simon, himself a product of the Nuke Navy, maintains that while Carter recieved signicant nucular training in the Navy, he did not earn the title engineer.
It is my understanding that the Quayle - potatoe thing was a setup, wherein he was provided with a que card to read. It shows a certain lack of sharpness to go along with this and not catch the misspelling, but far less than has been implied.
Ridiculing a person's pronunciation is merely a transparent attempt to belittle. It's trivial, petty, serves no useful purpose, conveys disrespect and is the act of an elitist snob. Now it's time for me to warsh some clothes.
My wife always winces when she hears "nucular," so I confess I get a special pleasure out of correcting her mispronunciation of "Nevada."
Which mispronunciation? I got MY "Neh-vah-dah" ('aaah') pronunciation directly from a resident, and have always taken issue when people try to correct me to "Neh-va-dah" (where the 'a' in 'va' rhymes with the 'a' in 'flat'.) If I'd been in Nevada many times, and heard it pronounced a certain way, who were they (who had never been there) to correct me?
Regional pronunciations will trip you up every time. Like the Goethe Park in my hometown, pronounced "Gay-tee." (¿Huh?) Or the Willamette River, rhymes with "damnit." And it is Gonzaga ('zig-zag') University, not "Gone-zah-guh" the saint. ("Note-er Dayme" University and "No-treh Dahm" Cathedral...)
Actually, B, the last one is sensible: it's an American pronunciation of French words.
Over here in the Cincinnati area we have some gems; one of my favorites has always been the local pronunciation of Louisville: "LOO-vuhl." Yep. Two syllables. :) Oh, and "warsh" for wash, and "Cincinnat-uh" Heh.