This is dumb and not really worthy of debate but it drives me crazy and I didn't know where else to put it. And I just had to share! LOL I am not a Bush hater or anything but it makes me nuts to hear the President of the United States say "nucular" for nuclear over and over again. URGH!

By Ginny~moderator on Thursday, February 28, 2008 - 11:42 am:

He is not the only one, sadly. Many other prominent people mispronounce the word in that way.

By Jtsmom on Thursday, February 28, 2008 - 12:34 pm:

It is probably more of his southern slang rather than just mispronouncing (sp?) it. I always get corrected by the things I say. How he says "America" cracks me up!! (and I am a Bush Lover!!!)

By Enchens on Thursday, February 28, 2008 - 02:02 pm:

He sounds fine to me. LOL (joking)

I'm sure many, many people have their difficult words. Every time I say "salary" it sounds like "celery". Or, according to my husband, when I say "wolf" it sounds like "woof". And yes, English is my first language! LOL

By Imamommyx4 on Thursday, February 28, 2008 - 02:49 pm:

I am Southern and the Lord knows that I have my own issues. But you'd think that the leader of THIS country would have better pronunciation of a word I'm sure he has to use quite a bit. It's just a pet peeve that was instilled in me in high school. I was sooooo Southern that I pronounced cool as coo and tons of others that were purely lazy. I had a teacher get in my face. She said she knew that I was intelligent and wrote very well, but sounded like I was a half ton short of a load. That hurt so I started to try to speak more appropriately.

By Enchens on Friday, February 29, 2008 - 02:53 pm:

Jtsmom,

I'm going to have to listen to his next speech and watch for the way he says "America." I've not noticed it before. I'm looking forward to it. LOL

By Kaye on Friday, February 29, 2008 - 06:05 pm:

I will just say that being from Texas, I didn't notice he was saying it wrong Just kidding, but really people here speak bad, and they just don't care. I also think it sounds uneducated. But I know I have my words...the main one, cement (pronounced sea-ment).

By Karen~admin on Friday, February 29, 2008 - 08:02 pm:

Being from the south, and in particular - south Louisiana - I've been surrounded by people most of my life with very poor grammar and no clue how to pronounce words correctly...examples:

ax = ask
zink = sink
boat = both
wit = with
nucular = nuclear


I could go on and on - but as was said before, when one continually mis-pronounces words, they sound ignorant - and for me, it's unacceptable to have an ignorant leader.

By Rayelle on Friday, February 29, 2008 - 09:21 pm:

Sometime during his last campaign on of the late night shows had a segment on whether Bush spoke better English or Spanish. Cracked me up! It drives me nuts too, one of many things about him.

By Annie2 on Saturday, March 1, 2008 - 08:38 am:

Pronouncing words differently can make one sound ignorant. However we must remember that this country has many types of "dialects", if you will. You can tell if someone is from the midwest, Boston, New York, the south, up north near Canada...
It drives me nuts when I hear people hear in FL say "sea-ment" for cement or "am-bu-laaance" for ambulance. Or that a car "crash" is a car "wreck". It makes me cringe my 12 year old, living all her life in the south says "All you Y'all". I correct her but also know this is normal speech here.
My sister you still lives up north says "budda" for butter, "caa" for car, and still uses the word "icebox" for the fridge....
Does this makes her ignorant; NO. It makes her an American.
You have to remember that people in the states do pronounce words and use phrases differently.
I still have a hard time saying funeral (fruneral) or festival (festibul).

By Amecmom on Sunday, March 2, 2008 - 10:51 pm:

LOL!!!!
I do think, though that someone in a public position has a responsibility to attempt to speak properly, regardless of a "regional" thing or not. I grew up in Brooklyn and refused to have a "Brooklyn" accent because I felt I should make th effort to pronounce words properly.

Many common mispronunciations really bother me, but the worst for me is jewelry. The word is Jewel with "ry" at the end NOT "jewLAry".

It really just takes listening to oneself and making the effort. That's what Bush lacks, the effort.

Oh well,
Ame

By Karen~admin on Monday, March 3, 2008 - 11:39 am:

Ame, DH is from NY and *he* says jewlary. LOL I have teased him about it forever. And though he's lost a lot of his *yankee* accent in the 11 years he's been here, it's still there:

heah = here
budda = butter

He always calls my purse my *pocketbook*. Makes me laugh so hard.

He will *put up coffee*.

He calls hamburger or hotdog buns *rolls* - a couple weeks ago he picked up barbeque and side dishes for dinner and asked for 4 *rolls* to go with it. He came home raving because the person gave him 4 small dinner rolls and he had to ask for *larger rolls*. I told him in the south, those are BUNS.

By Dawnk777 on Monday, March 3, 2008 - 03:15 pm:

In Wisconsin, those are buns, too! LOL! Unless you are talking about a Sheboygan hard roll, which is a yummy local "bun."

By Angellew on Monday, March 3, 2008 - 03:28 pm:

Good Lord, don't even get the Boston girl started on this!!!! LOL!!!

I've had to work very hard to "hide" my accent! For quite a few years, I worked in a very professional private banking office, and you can't have an accent there! My boss would laugh at me when I got angry or if he heard me on the phone with my family, I would immediately revert back to my "speak"! He said I sounded like one of the stars of Moonstruck! LOL!!!