The word
nuclear is pronounced "nu-
clee-ur",
NOT "nu-kew-lur." This is one of those things that many people do that really
unreasonably pisses me off, not that any of you should care about that. I feel that the term is so critically important to our lives, especially when used in the context of
nuclear weapons and
nuclear war, that
for gawdssakes people could at least make an effort to pronounce it correctly. It implies sloppiness to say it this way, and sloppiness is the
last thing I want around this particular area of
weapons technology.
How the heck did this start? My guess, uninformed though it might be, is that the use of the term nuke contributed...perhaps people thought (or just assumed) that it was a direct shortening of the word. I have to say, the most annoyed I've ever gotten at this is when I heard a commanding general of USSTRATCOM use the incorrect pronunciation in a speech, not once but around five times. If anyone should be able to get it right, it's him, damn it.
Please, please, all you people who have to talk to others about this topic during the course of your lives, and speak English, pronounce it correctly. There's no excuse, especially since there's no way to pronounce the properly-spelled word that way through phonetic error; you simply can't if the 'ell' comes right after the 'cee.'
Hooray! Somebody FINALLY caught the error and called me out on it! I guess someone does read carefully after all..heh...you know who you are.