Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Very interesting....

I received an E-mail yesterday saying that my blog had been flagged as one potentially being a "spam blog", but since I was an "actual human being reading this" my blog probably wasn't a spam blog. When I read how they flag spam blogs it said those blogs often participate in link spamming and use gibberish and nonsense words....but please believe me, Gouache is in fact a real thing and I'm not making it up.

I also thought I should give a pronunciation guide since for the first year I saw the word Gouache I thought it was pronounced as if it rhymed with grouch. It is really pronounced /goo-w-ah-sh/ but faster and slurring all the sounds together. If you know the IPA then it would be /guwoʃ/.

I bring in the IPA, or International Phonetic Alphabet, into this because I'm taking an introduction to linguistics class, that I love, and I learn all sorts of interesting and hypocritical things people do with language.

Today I think I will rant about people making fun of Bush for saying "nucular" instead of "nuclear" (which incidentally people don't even say that one right: the clear part is pronounced /klee-are/ not like /ear/). Anyway, apart from Bush having a totally different dialect than western America, he is making a mistake that EVERY SINGLE one of us makes, almost on a daily basis, just not necessarily with nuclear. Take for instance the word WEDNESDAY. Over time the pronunciation has been modified from the original /wed-nes/ to the switching of the consonants /d/ and /n/. This has been done presumably because it is much easier to pronounce.

The same can be said of the Midwestern and southern version of nuclear. The ending /ular/ is much more prevalent in English than the ending /lee-are/ (muscular, popular, tubular, etc. vs. Cochlear). So while the ending is incorrect, it is easier to say and it is more common.

If you are worried over our president's mispronunciations, take a chill pill. You do the same thing, just with different words. (Also look at the words, familiar /fermilar/, asterisk /asteriks/, Samson /Sampson/)

There is my rant. Obviously I have no pictures yet. Maybe sometime in the future...

3 comments:

Tobi said...

I think I just realized something. You are way smarter than me. I have no idea what you just said about the english language but it sounds true. Keep ranting my one and only Megzie.

Also I love the main picture on your blog. Is that your artwork?

Crazy Granny said...

Keep in mind when your pontificating, that you need to spell your words correctly or your going to get it from all those folks who study spelling. What is a name for one who studies the spelling of words? I loved the part on your blog where you talk about the best gift that Alex gave you. Hooray for middle names.

The Queen Vee said...

Megan you brilliant woman, I love this post. Pincushion and coupons are pronounced differently in Utah than anywhere else.