Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Hmmming and Harrumphing

When did "di-vye-sive" become "di-viss-sive"?

ETA: Apparently only recently, and apparently there's also been quite a bit of discussion around the Interwebs on the topic (just Google "obama divisive pronunciation" and you'll come up with a bunch.

Yes, it was Obama's pronunciation of the word, in his racism speech and a few times since, that got me hmmmming. But he's not alone. This article in the Boston Globe (scroll down) gives a little history.

One of my favorite law school professors also had some quirky pronunciations, like EE-pock for epoch. He was a smart guy, too. Is it just a matter of vogue (mis-)pronunciations?

PS I still voted for him. Obama, not my law school prof. :)

2 comments:

The Laundry Queen said...

Who says that?! As if having folks say hair-ess instead of ha-rass, or ma-toor instead of ma-chure wasn't enough!

Jen said...

Is it a Portland thing, because here in Arizona, we don't talk like that!