IMPORTANT:

I wrote this last night immediately after getting home from a six-hour drive with a head cold, listening to the whole debate during the last couple of hours and to a couple of pre-debate talk shows/news shows before that.  During that listening time, I heard several people comment on the topic over the air; then I found a couple of comments about it on my friends’ list when I got home.  I was irritated and exhausted, and I posted without thinking my phrasing through.  It’s not an excuse, but I know that’s responsible for the tone of it, in which I come off like an asshole (for which I’m sorry). 

I don’t apologize, though, for my concern about how people use that pronunciation as a "tell" about her intelligence.  This morning, I did more research on it (Wikipedia has a decent summary article on it with some links) and I stand by my position, if not quite as obnoxiously. 

In the Wikipedia article, there’s a footnote that leads to an old article from the conservative pundit William Safire that takes Bill Clinton gently to task for using the same pronunciation.  (Yup.  Bill Clinton sometimes says "nucyular.")  So there’s precedent on both sides of the political debate for this kind of red herring to be used as a weapon to ridicule and insult their opposition. 

All I want theliberal and tolerant people of my aquaintance to do is live up to our professed standards of tolerance and understanding.  To understand that making such a trivial thing a red flag for larger issues is a type of subtle bigotry and snobbery that annoys me, and that we have a long tradition of fighting that stuff when we see it; the use of such a tactic, however satisfying, is to do what we claim we will not do, and what we claim to abhor.

I apologize, again, to those I’ve offended with my tone.  I trust you will take that into account and forgive my boorishness.  But I am not apologizing for calling it out.

I’ve already seen people cranking about Palin’s use of the pronunciation "nucular" tonight.   (Y’know…Jimmy Carter pronounces it that way too, and during his Navy career, he was involved with the early nuclear sub development…what an idiot, eh?)

Know what this reminds me of?  People who think all Southerners are idiots, and who therefore use Southern accents to illustrate stupidity.

Snobs, in other words. 

It’s a variation, and not even an uncommon one, and NOT one that’s limited to stupid or uneducated people. 

For the record, here’s a note from Merriam-Webster concerning the fact that they list "nucular" as an alternative pronunciation of the word "nuclear."  Bolding is mine.

Webster’s standard response to readers inquiring about "nucular":

We do not list the pronunciation of "nuclear" as \’nü-ky&-l&r\ as an "acceptable" alternative. We merely list it as an alternative. It is clearly preceded by the obelus mark \÷\. This mark indicates "a pronunciation variant that occurs in educated speech but that is considered by some to be questionable or unacceptable." A full description of this can be found in the Guide to Pronunciation on our website at http://www.m-w.com/pronguid.htm. We are definitely not advocating that anyone should use the pronunciation \’nü-ky&-l&r\ or that they should abandon the pronunciation \’nü-klE-&r\.

To say "the word is spelled (x), and therefore should be pronounced (y)" doesn’t make any sense. Spelling is not a legitimate basis for determining pronunciation, for the following reasons:

1) English spelling is highly irregular. For example, "move", "dove", and "cove" are spelled similarly but pronounced differently. Likewise, "to", "too", and "two" are spelled differently and pronounced the same.

2) English spelling is frequently based on factors besides pronunciation. For example, the "c" represents three different sounds in "electrical", "electricity" and "electrician", but is spelled the same in all to show that the words are related.

3) Most importantly, spoken language is primary, not written language. Speaking is not the act of translating letters into speech. Rather, the opposite is true. Writing is a collection of symbols meant to represent spoken language. It is not language in and of itself. Many written languages (Spanish, Dutch, etc.), will regularly undergo orthographic reforms to reflect changes in the spoken language. This has never been done for English (the spelling of which has never been regularized in the first place), so what we use for written language is actually largely based on the spoken language of several centuries ago.

All of the entries in our dictionary (pronunciation, meanings, etc.) are based on usage. We have an extensive collection of files which date back to the 19th century. Language is changing all of the time in all respects, and any dictionary which purports to be an accurate description of the language in question must be constantly updated to reflect these changes. All words were pronounced differently at some time in the past. There is simply no scholarly basis for preferring one pronunciation over another. To not list all pronunciation variants would be irresponsible and a failure of our mission to provide a serious, scholarly, record of the current American English language.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other words:

I may be in line with the sentiments over Palin as a candidate, but I really think those who make this an issue,  or use it as something to make fun of, are full of shit.