Explains So MUCH!

Can’t figure out why Sarah Palin can’t say NEW-CLEAR?

Have questions about how a party spokesperson can come up with clunkers like “Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have shook up the establishment and delivered real reforms.” — ? Well, let the OED help. Introducing the concept of Parasitic linguistics…

 4. Linguistics. Designating a letter, sound, or element which was not originally present in a word, etc., but has been added or developed from an existing phonetic element.
  The addition may be a vowel or a consonant, as the d in thunder, the e in flower, or the second element in the diphthongs /e/; //; //; //. Cf. PARASITE n. 4, SVARABHAKTI n.

…and the word “Folksy,” which apparently covers a multitude of sins.

Stanford University Professor Seth Lerer, scholar of the English language: “I have come to believe that in fact, that is a regional or class dialect pronunciation, and that while educated people may believe that it’s wrong, I believe that pronunciation – along with certain other regional or class-based pronunciations – is considered to be relatively standard in certain parts of the country. … Because it has been used by somebody like (President) Bush and other people of prominence, it has become accepted as a standard.”

A Democratic version: “When John F. Kennedy said things like ‘Cuber’ instead of ‘Cuba,’ I vividly remember hearing people accepting that pronunciation. Because ‘Cuba’ was a hot-button word, people affected that pronunciation. … The umbrella question is this: What happens when people in power pronounce words in a particular way? … People adopt that pronunciation, believing it to be maybe not correct, but influential, powerful. They want to affiliate themselves with people doing the speaking. … I do believe strongly that this is a feature of the nature of political power.”

You want to blame “nucular” on someone? Blame it on Dwight David Eisenhower, who as president was first to hurl the pronunciation at American ears.

But who can we blame for “Lady Dianer” and “HAIR-assment” vs. har-ASSment? *sigh*.

Whither Jericho?: So, last night, a post-dissertation celebration. We sit down to watch a much hailed SF Channel show, two seasons set aside for a big gulp of viewing. We know nothing about it, except people like it, which is enough, when all we want is to be entertained… And, after the first episode, we sit, shaken, and look at each other.

“I can’t do this,” one of us finally admits. “Nope,” says the other, and so we toss aside two seasons worth of carefully hoarded entertainment, leave behind the mushrooming clouds on the horizon, the generator-lit darkness, the confusion, the loss, the acres of blackbirds lying dead on the ground.

We go upstairs and read trifling, silly things, quickly lose ourselves in other places that don’t exist… because it is abhorrent too see the familiar golden states, too hard to hear the names and see the clouds of oblivioun, to watch the country blow up, even fictionally, when we are fare from home.

Sort of pathetic, really.