Friday, September 5, 2008

A Little Clarification

More nuke-you-ler nonsense. Let's do something silly. Let's check the dictionary:

nu·cle·ar - [noo-klee-er, nyoo- or, by metathesis, -kyuh-ler]
What's that mean? (emphasis mine)
the [-kyuh-ler] pronunciation can be seen as coming from a process of metathesis, in which the [l] and the [y] change places. The resulting pronunciation is reinforced by analogy with such words as molecular, particular, and muscular, and although it occurs with some frequency among highly educated speakers, including scientists, professors, and government officials, it is disapproved of by many.
I left off that last one, we know that already.

.

1 comment:

NotClauswitz said...

Consonantal shift baby! Happens over time, the whole Tower of Babylon thing. Voiceless stops became fricatives, same sounds became affricates in other positions, three-voiced stops became voiceless. Germans did it in the 5th Century, Japanese had their owe shifts in the 7th C.