Reading the Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations. It’s delightful, if a little shocking, to be corrected on so many things. Author is well aware of linguists’ general rule that however people say a word, that must be right—but says it’s still important to have rules about what is right and what is beastly. Linguistic relativism is beastly, I bet he’d say. I appreciate the book for caressing my own oft-ridiculed internal rigidity on grammar, spelling, pronunciation. But his linguistic-judging sense goes much, much farther; even opinionated I sometimes feel his opinions seem arbitrary.
Reminds me of a friend who came up with a way to teach small children linguistics: say they grew up with african american vernacular english, and then they have to go to school, where teachers and standardized tests and so forth have different ideas. The idea is have them learn the difference between the two versions of english, and where to use them appropriately.
But I agree with the author: there is only one way to pronounce ‘nuclear.’
Tags: books, language, right and wrong
