Interesting pronunciation glitch
May. 18th, 2011 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuWe all mocked Presidents Carter and Bush for their inability to pronounce "nuclear" correctly. (And Carter was even a nuclear submariner!) Of course, they're hardly alone; the "nucular" club has many members.
What I find interesting is that Tani has developed the opposite problem. "Particular" is pronounced "particlear", "molecular" is "moleclear", and "circular" is "circlear".
I don't think it's hypercorrection, because we generally let the kids work these things out on their own. But I suspect that whatever causes people to conflate the "-cle-ar" and "-cu-lar" patterns has happened with my son, he just happened to learn "nuclear" first.
In any case, I wonder (hey,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tahnan, you're the linguist here!) how common that is.
What I find interesting is that Tani has developed the opposite problem. "Particular" is pronounced "particlear", "molecular" is "moleclear", and "circular" is "circlear".
I don't think it's hypercorrection, because we generally let the kids work these things out on their own. But I suspect that whatever causes people to conflate the "-cle-ar" and "-cu-lar" patterns has happened with my son, he just happened to learn "nuclear" first.
In any case, I wonder (hey,
tahnan, you're the linguist here!) how common that is.