Why do many people have trouble pronouncing the word "nuclear"?

Question

NEW-CLEAR..........easy.

Not NOO-Q-LEAR, Mr Bush, Natasha Kaplinsky, and others.

Answer 1

Oh hell, this is one of my worst peeves. Every time I hear it, I cringe. The guys who say it at work always get to hear me pronounce it correctly. I yell at the TV when Bush or some other idiot says Nu-Cu-Lar. lol

Answer 2

It's simply a sound change which is taking place and will probably replace the 'proper' pronunciation. It's not really a matter of which is easier to pronounce. Lots of words have had sounds inverted. 'Third' used to be pronounced 'thrid' for example. I wonder if the likes of Chaucer cringed every time he heard what is now the standard pronunciation?

However, since the BBC and people like Mr Bush should be using standard English (of which American and British English only differs to an insignificant degree), the pronunciation of words should be given care.

Answer 3

First, it is NOT a sign of lack of intelligence. Ironically, those who criticize President Bush for this pronunciation, overlook the two other Presidents who also pronounced it this way (Eisenhower and Carter), the latter of whom worked on a "nuclear submarine" in the Navy! Though it is not strictly a regionalism (I've heard intelligent people in the North or Midwest pronounce it thus), it is especially common in the Southern U.S.

So, WHY does this happen?

One other answer began to tackle it. This sort of re-ordering of the sounds in a word, called "metathesis" is a very COMMON phenomenon in human language.

Sometimes the results are regarded as ignorant, or at least non-standard (e.g. "aks" which was in fact simply a dialectal variant in both Old an Middle English.. in fact, it's hard to say which if either is "the original"). Sometimes the changed pronunciation becomes the ONLY one -- as with Old English brid, thridde, hros becoming bird, third, horse.

Some other 'standard' changes in pronunciation --but ones that do NOT change the order in spelling-- are: Wednesday (pronounced "Wensday" < "Wendsday"... but originaly W(o)dens -day), "iron" (/i-urn/ NOT /i-ron/, though the order is restored when the second syllable is ACCENTED in "ironic"), "comfortable" (mostly pronounced "cumf-tur-bl" or "cumf-tu-bl").

Why do these particular changes take place? "Ease of pronunciation" is a big part. In other words, the change may take place when the old order becomes difficult to pronounce, which may happen when the syllable loses the accent. This certainly accounts for "iron" and "comfortable", which one must slow down and pronounce very deliberately to keep the original order of sounds.

But there is a bit more to it than that. It is NOT difficult per se to say "NOOK-lee-er", not even in the dialects of those who say "NOOK-yuh-ler". But it IS an unusual sound-pattern for English.

In fact, the ONLY English words containing -clear pronounced this way are "nuclear" and forms that include it". On the other hand, there are MANY words that end with "-cular", e.g., circular, muscular, vehicular, (bin)ocular(s), jocular, vernacular. (Check out this list of 105 - http://www.morewords.com/ends-with/cular ).

Now there is a STRONG tendency in language to take words that are new, rare or unfamiliar or that simply have an unusual pattern (within that language) and adapt them to normal/common sound-patterns in the language. Hence, "NOOK-yuh-ler"

Of course, the pronunciation may be re-enforced if many speakers of a dialect use it. Even i you 'know the right way to say it' the habit can be hard to break. (That may obtain in President Bush's case, since a number of people who have met with him in smaller groups and heard him pronounce it "NOOK-lee-er" many times.)

Answer 4

Ha! That is a different accent
What about Noo Clear eer

Answer 5

I'm gonna get sh*t for this but in the US more Southerners say Nuke-Q-Ler, but I don't know why. It's not spelled that way; maybe it's easier to pronounce for them.

Answer 6

Because of ME!!!
My surname is Nuqui! (noo-kee)!

Answer 7

because they are stupid and possibly the inbreeding has affected the shape of their tongues.

Answer 8

they are just making it up so the show would be funny...

Answer 9

maybe they are scared of it....