Gorilla or elephant?

[TheKiltedWonder]

It does not help anything when many people say "nucular". I don't care how many people say it incorrectly, it is still incorrect. Everyone say it with me now, N U C L E A R. There, wasn't that better.

Sorry, this is just the linguist in me coming out. The pronunciation "nucular" is attested at least to the fifties and was in use by people connected with the nuclear program. So it's not just modern "stupidity" that has led to the pronunciation. And please don't tell me "well, it's not spelled that way; there's no second 'u'", because we all know how often English is pronounced as its spelled
As for changing meanings, semantic change is common. It can be annoying and you might wanna protest the modern usage, but as professor of mine used to say: "If something is used often enough for you to notice it and be bothered, then it's already too late."
Anyway, here are some examples of language change for any other losers out there who love etymologies (from Historical Linguistics: An Introduction by Lyle Campbell)
For words like "literally" that have changed due to hyperbole:
terribly, horribly, awfully used to mean "full of terror", "full of horror" and "full of awe". Was it Cotton Mathers that wrote something along the lines of "The Awefull Power of God".
and other common examples of semantic shift
dog-originally meant a specific breed of powerful dog.
starve-originally meant "to die" in Old English ( see German "sterben")
Bead-meant "prayer" in Old English, "prayer, prayer bead" in Middle English and now its any small round thing, even of sweat or water.
timber-is related to the Latin word "domus" (house) and the German word "Zimmer" (room)
Silly-meant "happy, innocent" in Middle English and "blessed" in Old English
Disease-meant discomfort, ie "dis-ease".

[Rampant Lion]

The one that blew me away, I hadn't heard until I moved to Silicon Valley. Heighth. I couldn't believe what I was hearing when I heard that.

[Clockwork John]

I'm in total agreement with most of you.

Words have meanings, use them!

True, meanings change, but you can at least use the right word. Attempting to use "big" words to look smart (and failing) makes you look ignorant.

And if the letters aren't there. don't say them!

I'm a big fan of synonyms. A varied vocabulary is a wonderful thing. My father-in-law uses "tremendous" do describe everything. How was dinner? Tremendous... Your job? Tremendous. Christmas? Tremendous. That muti-car pile-up that killed seven? Tremendous. I'd get him a thesaurus, but he probably wouldn't use it.

I'm a big fan of outdated slang, particulary from the UK. If something is cool, it's either "the business" or "brilliant."

People here can't seem to figure out what I'm saying.

[bikeolounger]

Hmm...we are taught that the double negative does NOT mean a positive (despite the mathematic implication otherwise), and that double-negatives are grammatically incorrect. Nowhere, however, do we try using a double-positive to imply a negative.






Yeah, right.



I've heard the expression, "elephant under the rug." I have sometimes heard this expression to include that the elephant was hiding under the rug.


I had also heard about elephants in the room, but they were usually pink, and related to the lack of sobriety of the person claiming their presence.

[Howard Clark]

I've already surrendered to the notion that "it's too late".

"Embrace the horror", as one of my friends is fond of saying.

I've never met anyone with a nuclear engineering degree or experience in the industry say nucular, ever. And they did have a first class program of Nuclear engineering at Iowa State University for a very long time. I have met many people who worked in the DOE lab, and have a couple of friends who still do.

Not saying it didn't happen, mind you, but I find it hard to believe that anyone in the industry or academia involved in splitting atom nuclei would say that.

I even have a Tennessee "mountain william" friend who worked at Oak Ridge, and is as down home as it gets and he says it right too.

But I digress.

There is nothing we can do about the shift in language, that is most assuredly true. Perhaps we should endeavor to make "kilt" a much more frequently used word ?

[TheKiltedWonder]

Not saying it didn't happen, mind you, but I find it hard to believe that anyone in the industry or academia involved in splitting atom nuclei would say that.

I even have a Tennessee "mountain william" friend who worked at Oak Ridge, and is as down home as it gets and he says it right too.

I'm looking for a citation for that. It's in one of these historical linguistics textbooks. I'm not surprised that your friend can say it "right" though; most people with a non-standard dialect do change their pronunciation once they get into certain fields. I'm not sure where the dividing line in the country is, but I'm fairly certain "nuclear" and "nucular" will be an isogloss (boundary between pronunciations) much like "greasy" and "greazy" with "nukular as the more southern/midwestern pronunciation. We all know that Bush uses it, but according to The American Heritage Book of English Usage, so did Eisenhower (born in Texas, raised in Kansas) and Carter (born in Georgia, and one of the first to be involved in the nuclear submarine program). (Source: http://www.bartleby.com/64/C007/0140.html)
Apparently Clinton says "nucular" as well, but I'm trying to find a more academic source for that. In any case, educated people certainly do pronounce it nucular.
I hope no one minds my long posts on this thread. It's just a subject close to my heart. Language is a rather personal thing, so I don't really expect to win many of you over But I like putting out what I know (on one of the few subects on which I know anything )

[Howard Clark]

Well if language wasn't fascinating, we wouldn't be reading this thread in the first place, would we ?

And I am not at all threatened or unhappy. It is just one of my personal pet peeve things. I had forgotten that Clinton said it too, or Carter, and didn't know about Eisenhower either.

Loads of interesting trivia to be picked up here. Fascinating... (in by best Spock imitation, Vulcan, not Dr.)

The pink elephant seen by the drunk is an old vaudeville routine, isn't it ?

And I always did wonder where the 800 lb. gorilla came from, because they really don't get anywhere near that big.

[slohairt]

In Canada, we're trying to change it to the 364 kg gorilla!

So far, not much luck...

[auld argonian]

Actually, I had to look that one up when I was starting the thread.

According to several sources, the big male gorillas often weigh over three hundred pounds but have never been known to exceed five hundred pounds in the wild. In captivity, however, there are records of gorillas who had become obese as a result of bad diets fed by zookeepers back before they really understood what gorillas ate in the wild. Phil the Gorilla star of the St. Louis Zoo weighed in at 776 pounds after his death...and he had been lingering and not eating for a while before he expired.

So, I guess that an eight hundred pound gorilla is a possibility...

Best

AA