Talk:Nucular

Older discussion

If I remember correctly, Jimmy Carter pronounces it this way, and he's a nucular engineer. -- Zoe

Why is that explanation considered incorrect? It seems all right to me. Is there another proposed explanation? - Montréalais

The pronunciation is considered incorrect. I've reworded it. -- Minesweeper

Nuclear is considered correct. It's the way every modern navy nuke pronounces it, the way it's taught in naval nuclear power school (not, by far, the only source of nuclear edumacation, but it's where Cartah gets his credibility on the issue (despite having never actually SERVED as a nuke)). However, accents touch the way we pronounce most everything. I'd consider Nucular to be more of an issue of dialect than ignorance. Izuko (talk) 11:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I propose merging and redirecting with nuclear Martin

The last edit by º¡º is about as NPOV as I've seen this article yet, however I'm still not sure "evolution" is the right choice here. Hephaestos 03:05 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you; I now consider it perfect. *grin* I'll shut up now. Hephaestos 03:11 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

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educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors, congressmen, U.S. cabinet members, and at least one U.S. president and one vice president.

What makes M-W think the one U.S. president is educated? ;) -- Tarquin 19:12, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Well he is educated, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's smart. - TheSeez

Were they referring to Dubya, Carter, or someone else by that "at least once U.S. president"? anthony 警告 13:21, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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Is it my imagination, or do some people (in the UK at least) talk about "new killer power stations" etc.? No wonder they've become so unpopular. Andy G 20:12, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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Why does it just say one president now? Did this turn out to not be true?

"Notable figures who have sometimes used this pronunciation include several Presidents of the United States, including John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush."

~ Resister 00:38, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I personally don't know for a fact that anyone except Dubya used it. If you can provide some cites, we should add this. anthony 警告 13:23, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Here's a cite for Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter using it, from the New York Times: http://www.uwm.edu/~iverson/htmlfiles/nucprolif.htm I'd be shocked if Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton didn't use it, considering their Southern backgrounds. Bill Clinton was notable for using other disapproved Southern constructions in public, such as double modals. ("might could" and the like.)

So "Southern background" equates to ignorant / poorly educated. And there was the rest of the world thinking the it was USofA background that implied ignorance. Please, please leave this article intact. It, above anything I've seen on Wikipedia, exhibits the "Good Ol' U S of A" as supreme comedy. Goodness knows, we need something to laugh at and the way that people rally around Dubbya's ignorance apparently blind to the extent to which they make the USofA a laughing stock is one of the funniest things on this US-view-of-the-world 'encyclopedia'.

Go, go Dubbya! Drop your nucular clangers. We love the sound. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.160.86.82 (talk) 14:03, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's a cite for Bill Clinton using it, written by a linguist and performed on NPR's Fresh Air: http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~nunberg/nucular.html

I'd be surprised if JFK used it, though with his non-rhotic Boston accent he did say "Cuber" for "Cuba," exhibiting the intrusive r characteristic of that acccent.

Remember that, in JFK's time, nuclear power was relatively new. They may not have settled on a "preferred" pronunciation yet. Izuko (talk) 11:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

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How about a link to linguistic evolution theories? I don't remember which page it was on, but I'm looking. --Harlan

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The first time I ever heard "nucular" (I don't live in the US) was on Mars Attacks, said by Rod Steiger, playing a bellicose American general. I laughed a lot, thinking he was mispronouncing it on purpose. Now I'm not sure he was being intentionally funny. 201.35.228.112 (talk) 05:07, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Plea

This page used to give so many people so much pleasure in being able to laugh at the Bozo Dunce of the West, aka 'Dubbya'. Couldn't the Nucular Page be reinstated in the interest of world harmony through humour.

Go, Dubbya, go! (Y'all).

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—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.51.91 (talk) 22:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Dictionary definition

Wikipedia is not a word usage guide. I suggest we transwiki this to Wiktionary, include a short blurb in nuclear (and I supposed Homer Simpson) if not already there, and then redirect to nuclear. anthony 警告 13:22, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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Respectfully, the entire "Nucular" entry should be removed, as it is absurd to add words that are mispronounced as unique entries; if you want to add it as a sub-heading, such as, "common mispronounciations" under the proper "Nuclear" topic, then that's certainly acceptable. Shall we allow "aks" (i.e., "ask") to be added? What about the newly abused word "teh" (i.e., "the")? How about the "z" for "s" words, such as "Girlz"? Do syllabic stress variations warrant separate entries? C'mon, folks! Let's keep it real! --Skaizun (talk) 19:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I have to agree with that. It's an interesting not, but should really be part of the nuclear page. But I'm also not convinced that it does any harm here. Izuko (talk) 11:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Huh?

"Nucular" is also the pronunciation preferred by Homer Simpson, and his confident use of it in The Simpsons exemplifies a level of cultural information that is largely overheard at some distance, second-hand, rather than read.

Sorry, from "cultural information" on, I don't get this at all. Does it use terms of art of postmodern textual analysis or some such? Maybe there should be a link explaining them, in that case. --Trovatore 30 June 2005 19:33 (UTC)

a possible phonotactical motivation

I think the reason why nuclear becomes nucular is phonotactically motivated.

1. By assimilation, the [li.ər] sequence of the word [n(j)uː.kli.ər] becomes [ljər].
2. This produces the disfavoured consonant cluster [klj]: English phonotactics has a constraint that stops are followed by one approximant at most.
3. The disfavoured cluster is reduced. That reduction is achieved through metathesis and is probably influenced by the mentioned words ending in -cular and the word nuke.

An analogous reduction of a this disfavoured cluster of stop + two approximants is found in the pronunciation of the word blue: Originally, the vowel of blue was identical to the vowel of cue, approximately [iw]. In most dialects of English, [iw] shifted to [juː]. Theoretically, this would produce **[bljuː]. However, this disfavoured pronunciation was reduced (by ellision) to [bluː]. Note that there are English dialects that preserve the pronunciations [bliw] for blue and [kiw] for cue. (Other languages don't have that constraint, compare Spanish pliegue [ˈpljeɣe].)

Can any English language linguist confirm this or is this just crazy talk of me? -- j. 'mach' wust ^{ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x} 9 July 2005 16:05 (UTC)

It sounds reasonable, but then we also have the word likelier, which has the same sequence of phonemes [klj]. thefamouseccles 02:07, 11 Oct 2005 (UTC)

But the cluster in likelier cannot be reduced without destroying the connection to likely-er. Also, likelier has a perfectly serviceable equivalent in more likely, which is rather more likely to be used, certainly in speech. This is not a counterexample. 82.92.119.11 14:37, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, the word likelier is a good point! I don't think, however, that the lack of a substitute pronunciation *likular can explain why it is really pronounced likelier. I'd rather say it's probably because this word is morphologically transparent: It's a compound like + ly + er. Nuclear isn't, but suppose there'd be an adjective *nuke, then you'd have the adverb *nukely, which would have the comparative *nukelier – I'd bet this word wouldn't be mispronounced as nucular. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 19:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

See also [1] (the note of 9th June, 2006).

This is ridiculous, there is no "motivation" behind mispronouncing a word. It merely happens as a byproduct of a lack of knowledge and education, plain and simple. Just like people who say conversate don't make a conscious decision to use a non existent word, they merely hear other ill informed people using it and assume that it's correct because they just don't know any better.

Personally I think this entry needs to go, it provides no real knowledge or substance and will only perpetuate the misconception that it is an acceptable alternative. On top of which, as if it wasn't bad enough, someone reading it might happen across the summary for this discussion and end up adding two more made up words to their vocabulary.

The fact that you don't know the correct spelling of phonetical or perhaps just don't understand the difference between phonetics and phonotactics but are attempting to use them to rationalize misuse of yet another word entirely proves my point...

To exacerbate the public knowledge deficit by attempting to rationalize it while at the same time using made up words like "phonotactical" and "phonotactically" would be supremely ironic, and quite hilarious as well if it wasn't so tragic.

correct pronunciation

So, with the wrong pronunciation given, what actually is the other common pronunciation? --Abdull 15:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Nu-clear. You can hear it pronounced at its Wikitionary page: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nuclear . --Fastfission 15:28, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Given the issue with accents and regional dialects, I'm not sure you can say that it's the "correct" way of saying it, so much as the "mid-western neutral" pronunciation. None the less, the pronunciation "strongly encouraged" in Naval Nuclear Power School is the nu-clear one. I don't see colleges endorsing any other pronunciations. Izuko 15:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

In the authoritative (and very informative) Longman pronunciation dictionary, by professor John C. Wells (London), there's no entry nucular, and at nuclear the [-kjələ] pronunciation is given (for both British and American English), but considered incorrect (as, say, ['gri:viəs] for ['gri:vəs], grievous, or [ɑ:ks] for [ɑ:sk], ask). There are also the results of "an opinion poll carried out by the author in 1998 among a panel of 1,932 native speakers of British English from throughout Britain" (p. xii): 94% of the respondents preferred [-kliə], 6% [-kjələ].

This is just a quotation, which I thought might be of some interest.

What makes it authoritative? Is it just preferred according to Professor Wells' wishes? And does a poll of British speakers really matter when it comes to how a word is pronounced in America? Izuko (talk) 11:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I've always heard "NEW-klee-er" as the "correct" pronunciation, never "Nu-clear" (which I would interpret as "NEW-klir"). Applejuicefool 16:32, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I second that. Always heard it pronounced NUKE-LEE-AR not NEW-CLEAR; it's a three-syllable word in NJ (where I grew up) and Canada (where I live). With a B.Sc. in biochemistry I've heard enough chemistry and physics professors pronounce it to know no one says NEW-CLEAR. G. Csikos —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.84.193.199 (talk) 00:17, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

Those of us in the south are often more efficent in our use of sylables. We say in two what it takes the rest of y'all three. Oh, and I've worked in the actual industry for eleven years. Yeah, I know it's not as authoritative as a biochemistry degree, but maybe it counts for something. Izuko (talk) 11:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hell, 2 syllable vs. 3 syllables? At least both pronunciations refer back to the way the word is spelled! MarkVolundNYC (talk) 17:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Homer Simpson Works In A Nuclear Facility

Maybe this fact should be mentioned in the article.

• why?--Manwe 13:28, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Weekly World News

WWN, popular tabloid, had an article about Nucular power as opposed to Nuclear power... is that all right to add? jeti 14:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Pedants Я Us

It may not be appropriate, either in place or time, but I feel compelled to point out that both "nucula" and "nucule" are actual words. (See discussion above.)

Here are the definitions:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Nucula
Nu´cu`la
n. 1. (Zool.) A genus of small marine bivalve shells, having a pearly interior.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Nucule
Nu´cule (nū´kũl)
n. 1. (Bot.) Same as Nutlet.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Nutlet
nut·let Pronunciation (ntlt)
n.
1. A small nut.
2. The stone or pit of certain fruits such as the peach or cherry.

These words are, understandably, somewhat obscure. Thus, while there may be cause for disliking his mispronunciation of "nuclear", if President Bush starts calling something or someone "nuculer" and means it, that's the time to worry... <G>

Noo'klar

Dr. Strangelove has a good example of the Southern pronunciation. G.W. Bush's is an invented mispronunciation.

"Revert unpiping to avoid a redirect"

Well, it redirected to Bushism anyway. I actually made the change thinking that "The Decider" might have its own article. There wasn't anything sinister behind the edit. Dubc0724 17:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I never assumed you were doing anything sinister. Heck, I don't even know if you're left-handed! I was just doing my WikiGnome duty, tidying things up.

Atlant 13:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

No problemo. Left handed, LOL. The Sinister Minister is my personal fave, if you like jazz banjo playing. Dubc0724 13:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Another Simpsons reference

Perhaps a less subtle example of The Simpsons' take on "nucular" is when, after Lisa corrects her mispronunciation of "foliage", Marge says "It doesn't take a nucular scientist to pronounce foilage." (Citation: http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3G04 The Simpsons Archive) Should this be added? Ash Lightfoot 02:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Related words?

It would make sense for this article to describe how someone who says "nucular" pronounces related words. Do they say "nuculus" for "nucleus", "nuculation" for "nucleation", etc? (I can't help because I don't know.)

I don't know about any related words, but there are certainly other words in the English language for which a transposition of letters in the pronounciation has become accepted. For example, comfortable/comftorble, jewelry/jewlery. Capedia (talk) 03:42, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem here is that most other words formed from "nucleus" (including "nucleus" itself) are, as far as I know, not found in the everyday speech of average Americans. MarkVolundNYC (talk) 17:18, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOT

I placed that template on your page just now. The page is witty, to be sure and it's well written, however, Wikipedia is not a dictionary and therefore entries that define words cannot be placed in Wikipedia. They CAN however, be placed in Wiktionary! Thanks! KoshVorlon
".. We are ALL Kosh..."
20:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this page is exactly a definition of a word, but an explanation of the issues surrounding that word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.169.147.143 (talk) 00:51, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

[ˈnuːkiləɹ]

Hello, all.

It's my impression that most Americans who mispronounce (yes, I'll put it that way) nuclear do not insert a "y" ([j]) sound into the word. It's always seemed to me that all they do is break the word up into 'nuc-le-ar' and then transpose the sounds of l and r, resulting in "nucelar" ([ˈnuːkiləɹ]), not "nucular" ([ˈnuːkjələɹ]).

Ever since I got the inkling that some persons thought the mispronunciation involved a [j] sound and might be spelled "nucular" (or, as Jude Law, playing Tony Blair under Pres. Bush's guidance, said on Saturday Night Live, "nuculur", with the last syllable almost rhyming with a careful pronunciation of lure), I've been listening for this [j] sound, this "nucular". In most users of the mispronunciation, I don't hear it; rather, I hear "noo-kee-ler".

Thoughts? President Lethe 03:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Two things. a) The Americans I hear who say "nucular" do use the /j/ in the second syllable. /'nuːkjuləɹ/. I just moved to Western Canada and am hearing similar variants. b) However, one thing that should be addressed more directly in the article is the first syllable, /n(j)u-/. British dialects almost exclusively use /nju-/, just as "news" is pronounced /njuz/. US dialects generally say /nu-/, as "news" is pronounced /nuz/. While in Canada, I've generally heard /'njuːkjuləɹ/ and /njuz/. BTW, I just cleaned up excess line breaks in President Lethe's entry above. I didn't change the text. samwaltz 04:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, samwaltz.

Yes; when I saw the I.P.A. last night, I also thought about the different ways of saying the first u. (I'm an American who actually does say [njuz] (though I still think a better rendering of my pronunciation would be [niuz] or [nɪuz]), &c.) I think many readers and writers are unaware of this common distinction between most BrE and most AmE pronunciation of many us and ews. Also, many times, Wikipedia has instances of attempts to combine R.P. and 'Standard American' pronunciations in a single I.P.A. example, when two would be better.

But to nuclear/"nucular" itself. When there is a [j] sound in the typical American mispronunciation, it does, I think, precede more of an [i] sound than an [u] sound: [ˈnuːkjiləɹ]. Seriously: the only time I've ever heard anyone, of any nationality, put a [u] sound (even if part of a diphthong) between the sounds of c and l has been when Jude Law said [ˈnjuː.kju.luə]—which sounded like nothing I'd heard before from any American, Briton, or Canadian. I think a simple listen to Pres. Bush's, and many another, common mispronunciation will review a medial vowel sound rhyming more with the word ye (of not just the English name of the letter e) than with the word ewe or yew.

Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter does NOT pronounce it "nucular", the references given make that clear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drawn Some (talk • contribs) 00:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC) President Lethe 22:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Carter's typical pronunciation was the pitiable /ˌnukjuˈliər/. —SlamDiego_←T 07:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

2008-01-23 Automated pywikipediabot message

--CopyToWiktionaryBot (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin uses it in the ABC interview with charles gibson --84.173.97.212 (talk) 11:02, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

She also used it consistently in the VP debate. MarkVolundNYC (talk) 17:13, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Then it is not just a rumour: Sarah Palin is, indeed, a veritable ass, a idiot! (With apologies to Charles Dickens). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.51.91 (talk) 22:49, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Foclear

Foclear (fossil fuels + nuclear energy) is also used : http://es.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&meta=vl%3D&fr=yfp-t-501&p=%2Bfoclear&fr2=sp-qrw-orig-top&norw=1 --Mac (talk) 14:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Steven Pinker has proposed

The "Steven Pinker has proposed" part of this article remains a little unsatisfactory as long as it remains occult where he proposed such a thing (but I'm amazed that this information is still in the article at all). Does anybody have a reference for it? -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 00:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Correction of 'most' or 'many' Americans

It is only a minority of Americans who do not pronounce nuclear (and nucleus, from which it is derived) correctly. One hypothesis is that the mispronunciation arises from a weak association with scientific subjects during early education. This could, for example, explain the prominence to which the mispronunciation ascended during the presidency of 'George W. Bush', aka 'Dubbya'.

Most Americans pass through that stage of education with a reasonable grasp of the science surrounding the nucleus of the atom, and go on to correctly pronounce the words relating to it, as is the case in most countries. Unfortunately, Dubbya's prominence on the world stage (sic) introduced the mispronunciation to a sufficiently large number of, presumably, poorly educated listeners to cause undeserved humour at their expense in te eyes of much of the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.51.91 (talk) 23:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

notability

Why do we consider this notable? are we going to have every common misspelling and mis pronunciation its own wikipedia page ?--RichardMills65 (talk) 23:56, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

That's an excellent question, and one that might be best answered with a nice long greco/latinate name for the reason this is notable, and adoption of this page by a "project X" where X is that name, which project will also adopt the page on the heavy metal umlaut. 75.87.130.113 (talk) 20:18, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree, but notability isn't even really the problem, to put it bluntly pronouncing the word as nucular is just plain ignorant. To lend credibility to something like this will do nothing but serve to further the spread of that ignorance. Where does it stop? Many people say axe instead of ask, should that get an entry? Should we add conversate too? If anything this entry should be a simple one sentence explanation that it's an improper pronunciation and provide a link to the right page. It's an unfortunate fact that many people are already wary of coming to Wikipedia for knowledge, this kind of thing will certainly will not assuage that feeling of trepidation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justin Buser (talk • contribs) 18:01, 1 January 2013 (UTC)