Spelling, speaking woes a diversion from politics

With school back in session, it seems an opportune time to ignore The Never-Ending Political Campaign From Hell for a day while we turn to the textbook chapter on spelling and word pronunciation.

If you are one who recalls assurances from a favorite grade school teacher that poor spellers were destined to dwell forever at the low end of the economic food chain once unleashed upon the world, you may be having second thoughts after reading a report in Thursday’s newspaper.

From Livermore, Calif., came news that – your old school marm’s dire warnings notwithstanding – it can, in fact, pay handsomely to be a poor speller in this standards-challenged age. The city of Livermore paid an artist $40,000 to create a ceramic ground mural at the entrance to its public library that memorialized 175 of history’s heavy hitters.

Unfortunately, unveiling of the artwork proved to be somewhat of a bummer when it was discovered that the names of Albert Einstein, Vincent van Gogh, Michelangelo and Shakespeare were misspelled. Throwing good money after bad, the city then offered the artist an additional $6,000, plus expenses, to fly from her Miami home

to correct her mistakes.

If it occurred to you when reading the article that paying an artist to rectify her errors, rather than docking her for making a hash of things in the first place, is a lot like paying a surgeon extra to remove the hacksaw blade he left in your chest cavity, rest assured that you have company here on the banks of the lower Penobscot. Ditto, if it also occurred to you that they sure don’t make spellers like they used to.

Nor, for that matter, do we much pronounce words as we once did, especially on television, where the talking heads seemingly strive to cultivate their own affectation so as to stand out from their more commonplace brethren.

And sistren. The word “either,” pronounced “i-ther,” rather than “e-ther,” has long driven me up a wall, although not quite as far up as hearing “anyways” for “anyway,” even though the dictionary says all of the above are perfectly acceptable and I’d be well advised to find some other insignificance to whine about.

But CNN’s Wolf Blitzer laid a new one on me in an analysis of the vice-presidential debate earlier this week. The Bearded One pronounced the word “collegial” with a hard ‘g’ rather than the easier-to-stomach soft ‘g’ most people employ, so it came out “co-leeg-ial.” I thought he might have been talking about something being “co-legal,”

whatever that might mean, but when I hauled out the dictionary I discovered that the word can be pronounced either way. The citation didn’t suggest that only a geek with a tin ear would use the hard ‘g’ version in polite company. But it probably should have.

To be fair about it, when it comes to the pronunciation thing the burden on those toiling in television and radio is greater than that for the print media crowd. The live-mike fraternity has to actually pronounce the words for the clamoring masses, while we formerly ink-stained wretches merely have to lay them on the page for readers to

mangle as they see fit in the privacy of their homes.

True, the television/radio pronunciations are not always pretty. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes not. But that’s the fun of it. Take, for example, the pronunciation of “Qatar,” the Persian Gulf emirate that was so much in the news during the early days of the Iraq boondoggle.

We heard it pronounced “Ka-tar” and “Ga-tar,” with emphasis on the first syllable as well as on the last syllable – all of which the dictionary allows. But the talking heads also served it up as “Gutter” and “Gator” and “Cater” and “Cutter” and the like. If listeners weren’t totally confused it was only because they had long since ceased to pay attention.

God only knows what television might have done with “Ypres” had it been around during World War I to chronicle the tribulations of that Belgian hotspot. (Near as I can figure, the book says that “e-per” is the way to go on that one. Beats me as to why. Something French, no doubt.)

For me, the word has always been one of those booby traps to just glide over when encountered in text – one I hope will never be sprung on me cold turkey while I’m reading aloud to an audience of thousands, leaving no option but to wing it.

As to what other words are on my do-not-attempt-to-pronounce-aloud list, my lips are sealed.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His email address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.