Please. Someone take Fuckface aside and tell him how to pronounce NUCLEAR!

[Sannum]

[Captain Hilts]

1. I grew up in the submarine community, and if I said that...

I would get slapped!

[Initech]

2. I agree!

Really, I dont think you should be allowed to be against something until you can pronounce it.

nu-cle-ar, it really cant be that hard to prounounce.

[madeline_con]

3. NU-CU-LAR ALERT!!!

Bwahahahaha! I missed hi use of that one, but I recorded it for posterity. And evidence. ;)

[nytemare]

4. New clear new clear new clear nu clear

Nuclear.

[marmar]

5. You can't teach an old labotamized dog new tricks (or words)

:dunce:

[uppityperson]

6. It's getting hard for me to remember how to pronounce it right.

I have to think these days, nuclear, nucular, one is a grouping of a type of family, one a grouping or subatomic particles. Dang, nucleus, nuclear, got it! Dumbing me down even.

Edit to add: hard to spell right too.

[Gemini Cat]

14. Same here. nt

[Patsy Stone]

7. As the dictionary clearly states, he's WRONG!

Usage Note: The pronunciation (noo-ku-lar), which is generally considered incorrect, is an example of how a familiar phonological pattern can influence an unfamiliar one. The usual pronunciation of the final two syllables of this word is (-klee-ar), but this sequence of sounds is rare in English. Much more common is the similar sequence (-kyu-lar), which occurs in words like particular, circular, spectacular, and in many scientific words like molecular, ocular, and vascular.

He falls victim to the oldest trick in the book: the "familiar phonological pattern" routine... :)

[Tommymac]

9. Nah, he's just plain stupid.

;)

[Patsy Stone]

10. You're right

I'm thinking way too much and working way too hard. :)

[ScamUSA.Com]

12. some dictionarys have actually added it as an alternative pronunciation

*boggle*

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. That's because things like language are determined by usage...

descriptive, not prescriptive. If rules for pronunciation and so on were graven in stone, we'd still be pronouncing words like "knight" as written (kuh-niGht), like back in Chaucer's day...

[alarcojon]

15. I'm happy to ascribe it to regional dialect

I know enough educated people who pronounce it this way to know that it is not necessarily a sign of stupidity. Of course, in the case at hand it IS in fact a sign of stupidity.

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. Jimmy Carter pronounces it "nuke-you-lure", too.

And so did Eisenhower. (Of course, this is not to suggest that Bush is in any other way comparable to Carter or Eisenhower.) Regional dialect variation, I suppose.

[Captain Hilts]

11. No, Carter pronounced it "New-KEE-er"

So, he had the syllable separation more accurate.

[livinginphotographs]

16. Thank you.

It's like having a president Homer Simpson.

If it was one time, I wouldn't say anything, but the fact that his keepers let him keep saying it wrong just drives me up a frickin' wall.

[alarcojon]

17. His keepers WANT him to keep pronouncing it that way

How could it be otherwise? Rove and his staff had a discussion a long time ago and decided that keeping the pronunciation makes Bush seem more "homespun" and "in touch with the people" with most of the Murkan people. Only pointy-headed intellectuals, a small group not likely to support Bush in the first place, would dislike his annoying pronunciation, and we would be painted as elitist by the likes of OxyBoy and O'Shithead.

[madeline_con]

18. Sutherland says it that way, too...

In his show "24". That, and the fact that they're always after some Arab guy are the reasons I can't watch. Villifying Arabs seems to be the rule of the day.

[Igel]

19. Yeah, yeah, only idiots pronounce it

"nuklyular". And only idiots say "warsh" for 'wash', or "kah" for "car", front the /u/ in dude or the /o/ in "dope", drop /s/ off of third person single present tense verbs, have stopped pronouncing the /h/ in "which" (making it distinct from "witch"), end sentences with a rising intonation (aka "uptalk"), or pronounce "pin" and "pen" the same.

Which means most people with a non-prescriptive southern or Appalachian accent, living on the middle Atlantic seaboard; Bostonians and some other New Englanders, Californians, African-Americans, most people outside the Pacific Northwest, young people in the Southland, or people in the Pacific Northwest, are idiots.

"NBC" English is a nice fiction. Few have it as their first language. Many people speak it as a second dialect. They also, at least formerly, didn't split their infinitives or end sentences with a "preposition" ... something on about I could go for a while, but which I think is better not really to do.

Prescriptivists. I thought linguists stamped most of those out a few decades ago. Is that you Saffire?

[immoderate]

20. I gave up with "iron."

Everybody thinks it should be pronounced like eye-yurn. I think that's, well, ironic.

--IMM