More about nukular, also Iran and Iraq

[nancylebov]

http://duckofminerva.blogspot.com/2008/10/still-going-nucular.html

In fact, this very relationship has been found in a new study of the pronunciation of "Iraq." While Lauren Hall-Lew and her collaborators do not find any variation on the pronunciation of the first vowel, their carefully coded analysis of Congressional statements and media coverage shows that "Iraq's second vowel indexes conservativism when produced as /ae/ and political liberalism when produced as /a:/" - even controlling for regional accent.

I hear "Eye-rahk" now and then on NPR. I think it's more commonly used by military people.

From the comments: We see the same thing with the word "Iran." In liberal circles, it's usually pronounced "err-ron," Whereas in more conservative ones we hear "I-Ran."

I pronounce it "Ih-rahn". Maybe that means I'm a libertarian.

Footnote: Sometimes I pronounce it "Ih-ran", with a nasal Delaware a that I don't know how to express by typing.

Comments

[selenite.livejournal.com]

An Air Force joke from 1991:

"Why did the Iraqi Air Force fly to Iran?"

"They couldn't find Iquit!"

Which tells you how they were pronouncing them.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Huh. It's like the similar distinction in the previous war, between SAED'm and suh-DA:M.

[madfilkentist]

I also say Ih-RAHN, so that's two data points. :) I don't recall hearing "err-ron" from anyone.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

I think "err-ron" was someone's attempt to orthographize Ir-RAHN, which doesn't work.

[bugsybanana.livejournal.com]

I always say err-rack and err-ran. Just easier, and the ah sound seems not-English to me in context.

I have had a pet theory for a while that the more on-the-outs we are with a country, the worse its name and its leader's names get mispronounced. I came up with this listening to people pronounce "Khomeini" over the years as our stance with Iran became more and occasionally less hostile. It seems just petty enough to be plausible.

[avram]

I remember hearing some comedian back in '04 or thenabouts suggest that "We should combine Iraq and Iran into one country called Irate." My reactions were (1) that joke only works if you mispronounce the countries' names, and (2) didn't we basically just do that?

[gildedacorn.livejournal.com]

>I pronounce it "Ih-rahn". Maybe that means I'm a libertarian.

I pronounce it "ih-rahn" because that's the way it was pronounced by my Iranian co-workers.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I stopped reading at the point where "nuclear" was compared to "likelier." People say "likelier" because they are already used to saying "likely." No one is used to saying "nukely."