Quibbling

I sometimes think that I should made my user name "Sporadic" instead of "sporktastic". Of course, when I was setting up the blog, I had no idea how I would be. One project that was keeping me very busy is completed now, so that is nice, though there is always a long waiting list.

Anyway, one thing I was thinking about was vocabulary. You may think of me as having a fairly good one, and that is pretty true but there is a weak area in that I learn most of my words from reading, and I often have poor instincts on how they should be pronounced.

This came up recently when for some reason I used the word "sadist". (It totally made sense in context.) Now, I have actually heard people pronounce this with a long "a" (SAY-dist), so I should be okay on it, but I have also read "A Wrinkle in Time", which refers to IT as the "happiest sadist", (pronounced SADD-est), and said that most people pronounced it wrong. So I was corrected, but common, this is a Newberry Award winner! If I can't trust Madeline L'Engle, who can I trust?

Now it was bugging me, so the next resource was the dictionary. Surprisingly, they gave two correct pronunciations, though it looked like the one was more sod than sad, as in Marquis Du Sade-ist. This led me to greatly doubt Ms. L'Engle.

(I had a similar issue with “sloth”, which my father insisted should be pronounced with a long “o”, and the dictionary does give that as an alternative, but no one ever says it that way. As it is, I feel like I am saying it wrong regardless of how I say it, when really, I am right no matter how I say it.)

Going back to the original issue, I also had to wonder if SAY-dist was never really wrong, or if it has just gained acceptance. After all, language changes and evolves based on usage all the time. There is a dictionary entry for "irregardless" now, though they admit it is non-standard.

That would be one reason to accept either pronunciation, or all three if we could get more people to use it, but I hate it when errors become accepted through common use. I get that ignorance is really democratic, but I still always feel like ignorance should be refudiated (sic).

The comic "Frazz" helpfully came through for me with a storyline about someone using the word "penultimate" instead of "ultimate", but then getting it correct. First, let me say that a lot of these errors come from people trying to dress up what they say, when speaking simply but correctly is always more effective. But I digress.

Anyway, in the June 9th strip, Miss Plainwell compliments Mrs. Olsen on admitting her mistake.

Mrs. Olsen: Eh. All I have to do is wait. If people misuse a word or phrase long enough it just gets absorbed into the language.

Miss Plainwell: Evolution isn't like a license.

Mrs. Olsen: I could care less.

Indeed.


2 Nephi 33 - Jacob 4
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