PRONOUNCING ‘NUCLEAR’

Aside from everything else, with both Iraq and now North Korea in the headlines, people should learn to pronounce the word “nuclear” correctly. George W. Bush, like several other presidents, keeps saying “NEW-cular.” He did it again just recently.

The mispronunciation rolls off the tongue more easily, possibly because it rhymes with commonly used words including “secular,” “macular” (as in macular degeneration) and “particular” and sounds something like jugular and regular. The correct pronunciation, NEW-clee-ar, is almost unique in the English language. Scholars say the only word with the same last two syllables is “cochlear,” an adjective referring to a part of the inner ear called the cochlea. Both Bushes, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan all said NEW-cular, and Jimmy Carter went his own way with NEW-kee-er.

Admittedly, the pronunciation of the “nuclear” in “nuclear weapons” is a lot less important than what is done, or not done, with those weapons. Still, a few moments’ distraction now and then to lightly contemplate how to pronounce a word sometimes is needed relief to the threats within and without.