Discussion Forum (Archived)
Guest
Peter Sagal, on the latest "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Mer" (150117 Dame Edna Everedge) claims that because Mr Romney has tried so hard for so long to become POTUS, we really owe it to him to make him "president for a day". He would get to make a speech before an appreciative audience (does that ever happen to Mr Obama, even for State of the Union?), sign a bill into law, and order a clandestine assassination.
But he pronounced it KLAN duh stine, instead of klan DESS tin.
Is this a legitimate pronunciation in some dialect (Sagal was born in NJ, went to Harvard, the show is in Chicago, and he has a rabbi for a brother), or is this just a "reads too much" pronunciation? I ask because I find myself hearing that pronunciation some of the time when I read silently to myself, and I've thought it was the latter explanation.
I have heard it pronounced both ways all my life. I'm sure it was always on TV or in movies because nobody around here uses that word. Here is an interesting find. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkcubanmissilecrisis.html This is John Kennedy's address to the nation about the Cuban missile crisis. In it he uses clandestine two times and pronounces it two different ways. Something to help me identify with him.
RobertB said
deaconB said
But he pronounced it KLAN duh stine, instead of klan DESS tin.If by capitalizing you mean the pronounced stresses, both stress options are listed by the dictionaries.
The difference I am concerned with is the movement of ST from the second syllable to the third, and switch from a short i to a long one. I didn't find any dictionaries listing the STINE pronunciation, only the TIN one.
Dick said
This is John Kennedy's address to the nation about the Cuban missile crisis. In it he uses clandestine two times and pronounces it two different ways. Something to help me identify with him.
You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use. - Mark Twain
But as far as identifying with Jack, I would druther Marilyn Monroe had met me and found me irresistible. Ah, such is life.
(And yes, I am familiar with the word rather. In that context, though, the oral English druther seems more appropriate than the written English rather. And the neighbor's cat doesn't disapprove.)
I agree with Mr Clemens that grammar is not what my eighth-grade spinster English teacher prescribed, but rather each of us (including cats) establishes his own rules of grammar, and if we can make ourselves understood, and we aren't considered uncultured idiots, then we have succeeded. (Those who write druther arer either quoting someone else, or they run a high risk of being considered a dolt.
Since Kennedy is credited with being the author of a highly-regarded book by Ted Sorensen, he can get away with stuff that the average janitor couldn't get away with.
The shift of stress seems typical of the kind of shifting that is constantly happening from British to American English. But the change in pronunciation isn't something I've heard before. It strikes me as the kind of pronunciation that comes from a reader who hasn't heard or spoken the word often. Is there a word for that? As a solitary, introverted reader, my first years in college were particularly marked by these mispronunciations...
In general, the phenomenon of pronouncing a word as only seen spelled is a "spelling pronunciation". While that typically refers to mispronunciations involving pronouncing silent letters, I think it is quite fair to include misplaced stress patterns as well. Wikipedia lists several examples of pronunciations that have shifted to the point of acceptability Wikipedia on spelling pronunciation.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
1 Guest(s)