Thursday, November 02, 2006

SNOBLISH
There is only one species of homo escapeons so why don't we eliminate all of the other frivolous languages and everyone could use Central Canadian Standard English!

Mispronouncing certain words or names other than the way that I think that they should sound drives me crazy. There probably is a medical term for such snobbery but I am unaware of it. I realise that the English language is a complicated entity and difficult to learn but the genius of English is its ability to regift other tongues thereby rendering all other languages as superfluous relics of the past.

When Julius Caesar landed in Britain 2,ooo years ago English did not exist and five hundred years later it would have sounded incomprehensible. Even one thousand years later English was spoken by about seven million people, like
William Whatshisface Shakespeare, and had little influence beyond the British Isles.

Today however the first global language has over 500,000 stolen or created words and another half million technical and scientific terms to deal with.
Like a crafty gladiator planning a revolution, English kidnapped and held captive any foreign words that came within its reach during periods of captivity.

For instance after The Battle of Hastings in 1066 the British throne was ruled by Norman French speaking Monarchs who could only curse in English. Harold was the last English speaking King for almost 300 years and French and Latin dominated matters concerning law, religion, science and literature. This is the reason that French was/is considered tres la di da. Whatever.

The undeniable, indisputable truth is that at this point in time I can declare without fear of hyperbole that Central Canadian Standard English is indeed

the top of the hopper, pick of the litter, zenith, apex, best, peerless, supreme, matchless, unparalleled, paramount, acme, unrivaled or greatest living version of the English language...EVER!

Central Canadians have abandoned the outrageous, regionally tainted , socially stigmatized, inflections and have unwittingly managed to create a bland, plain, no frills attached, version of English which is unencumbered by character, completely void of style and therefore suitable for global consumption.

It stands to reason that however we Central Canadians decide to pronounce something is ultimately the correct and final word on the matter. Neener!

The reason that we Canadians had to fix English is because like every other problem in the world, the United States really screwed it up. Thanks to the worldwide influence of American Television and Film we humans acknowledge certain dialects of English as either smart, dumb or colourful.

In the Movies viewers have learned to love the novelty of British and Australian accents and readily mock the Forrest Gumpian Southern US twangy drawl. If a character in a movie needs to sound intelligent they give him an Upper Class British Twit accent. Zany and wild is automatically Australian. A villain needs to sound ignorant to be hated so he is automatically saddled with a trailer trash inbred hillbilly white supremicist drawl. Sad but true.

It is my dream that one day every man, woman, and child on the planet will speak Central Canadian Standard English.

Anyway enough with that incendiary mental masturbation.
My big three fingernails on the chalkboard snob words are:
Himalayas
which in my prescence must be pronounced
HYMN-MALL-YAHS
as they do in parts of the world where this mountain range is actually visible. I know, I know.



FAVRE
Brett Favre, if you are within ten feet of me you had better discard the mindnumbing FARVVV!
I will accept FAV-REY or even FAVVVV
but puhleeze do not say FARRRRRVUH!!!!


NUCLEAR
and of course Nuclear is not NEW-KEW-LEWR
or NU-KU-LAR as Dubya loves to say...
I prefer NEW-CLEAR.



What are your Snob Words?

61 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Since Canukistan is the perfect language, does this mean we'll all be putting 'eh' at the end of our sentences then?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank goodness we'll probably never meet in person!

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  4. Anonymous12:00 pm

    I think Dubbya needs a bomb up his Poshterior for saying New Cular!
    I scream every time I hear that!

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  5. angela,
    f a c e t i o u s
    Sorry if you took this at face value. It was an excercise in hyperbole but also a look at how we humans still cling to tribal identities even 150,000 years after leaving Africa as a homogenous group.

    We still somehow feel the need to belong to inclusive distinct groups and we remain suspicious of anyone who is different.

    Next to latitudinal adaptive skin colourations, language is probably the most powerful agent for group identification.

    I just wanted to instigate a little self righteous indignation with this little diatribe. Canada is a pipsqueak country that is completely ignored on the world stage..the idea that any idea that we come up with would make an impact on a global level is wishful thinking.

    HEY CREAM!!!
    How are you? I know that poor Dubz is an easy target but what are ya gonna do? If they get rid of him who will we pick on? I thought that it would be interesting to see which words IRK people..I think that we all have a couple...don't we?

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  6. Ooooh, I've got a good one: Realtor. Pronounce it correctly: REAL-TUR. It grates on my last nerve to hear people say RILLA TUR.

    BTW, I found your blog from Within Without's blog.

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  7. HE, I was kidding...! You're not the only one who can do f a c e t i o u s. Do you really think I take anything you say seriosuly? :)

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  8. ms. val,
    Bienvenue, Hola, Willkommen!
    What a coinky-dink!
    In a previous incarnation I myself was once a Commercial Rillatur and even had the little pin on my lapel to prove it.
    Excellent choice.

    Within Withwho?

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  9. angela!
    Oh thank goodness..I was just booking my flight to Chicago in a frantic, last ditch, hair brained, attempt to weasel, I mean win, my way back into your heart and mind.

    I should have known that you were wise enough to disregard my inane ranting as insensitive, vitriolic, tomfoolery!
    WHEW!

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  10. *rolls eyes*
    oh, you're not coming now? I had your room all prepared....

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  11. aidan,
    You seem to be suffering from a form of Vague Antecedents Syndrome which involves Troublesome Verbs, and the Gender and Number of Indefinite Pronouns!

    It is Imperative that you quit splitting Infinitives, don't get your Phrasal Semicolon in a Subordinate Conjunctive knot..your Participles are dangling..and so is your Gerund!

    I have no idea what any of that means.

    ReplyDelete
  12. You are quite right with your nuclear pronunciation.

    ReplyDelete
  13. well, in my line of work, I must say that mar-bah-lows seems like a looooooooooooong way to say marbles.

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  14. Ha ha. Yeah, I say Brett FARVVVVVV. It's how I was taught.

    I hate when people call Lloyminster "Lloyminister". It's a damn city, not a guy who stands at the front of a damn church.

    I also don't like hearing people use the word "real" when they should say "really".

    Don't say "she's real nice".
    Please say "she's really nice".

    ReplyDelete
  15. i noticed on the news they started pronouncing kilometre 'KI-LO-METRE'.. while I usually say 'KA-LAH-MAH-TER'.. it just irks me slightly

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  16. However Peter Jennings spoke it is alright with me, and he did happen to be Canadian, so what does that do to your little theory? hehe GOTCHA!

    It's interesting how much more inteligible I got the further North I moved......

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  17. All I can say is I just lovvvve this blog because it has a certain jenny say what.

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  18. Language...pronunciation...what is correct or incorrect...all to me a matter of region. We, as a people, have evolutionzed the common language of english and so often times interpreted and injected our own.

    The thing is, with so many different cultures and countries...language is a variation, no matter what. Who is to say what is right, or what is wrong, when some common sense of understanding exists no matter what language we speak, or don't speak. Language can be a barrier, or it can be an open passage to all that is human.

    I, for one, feel as though, it can serve to show the diversity that is the human race and the difference in climate, upbringing, and intellect.

    I don't make sense...off to shower now.

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  19. I agree with Awaiting. :)

    ReplyDelete
  20. cherry,
    Thanks...are you out running?

    joyce,
    That is exactly how Billy Crystal said it on SNL,
    "You Loook Mar Bah loss!"

    grumblosity,
    That is the wonder of English..the grand old whore that she is will gladly take in anyone! Look at all of the slang that is making it into Websters...those kids and their instant messaging is the next frontier...with their deletion of vowels to speed up their e-talk...English will soon be unrecognisable again when it is back dots and dashs!

    Amorousblogger,
    Wes Minister! HAHAHAHA! I love it...you're right. Please don't say FaRvuh anymore..he is retiring anyway isn't he?

    hey stu hood,
    YES sorry stu the writing is on the wall..my Grandfather was from the old country and he taught me kilometres back in the 60s..it is supposed to sound like all of the others metres..centimetres, decimetres.....

    klaw-mitt-ter is very Yankee doodle dandy..it should be in miles anyway!

    THE michael,
    Peter was awesome..compare his presentation to the Midwestern mumble mouthed moaning of Tom Brokaw..and his tone dropped off to inaudible levels at the end of every sentence!!!!
    Even lipreaders couldn't tell what he was saying.
    Jennings proved my theory!

    fronty,
    Thank You Sir,
    let's get wicked pissed this weekend and decide, once and for all, which is THE worst song ever written?!
    PS.
    Yewr fraynch is umpeccabull!

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  21. awaiting,
    AHA! That is my point!
    As a species we cannot help but devise methods of segregating and pigeonholing our identifiable clans.
    I'm not suggesting this just to put United Nations' interpreters out of work but try to imagine all of all of the money that could be saved if everyone spoke perfect Central Canadian Standard English.

    christine,
    Before I break out into a chorus of Ray Steven's Everything is beautiful in it's own way, I just want to mention that you probably pronounce everything in Central Canadian Standard English anyway.
    Aren't we the lucky ones?

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  22. Sounds good. Right after I cover the impending departure of a community college president and shoot photos of a U.S. senatorial candidate, I should be in the proper mood >B^D>

    ReplyDelete
  23. Right now I'm speaking in Daylight Savings Time English, which means I'm an hour behind all the comments on this page.

    And just when Awaiting was losing my concentration and comprehension, she mentioned a phrase with the word 'shower,' which brought the entire discoure into extraordinarily sharp focus . . . I'm gonna get slapped, I know.

    ReplyDelete
  24. And what's the difference between English and a Ferrari? Not everyone's been in a Ferrari. badadaDUM!

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  25. Common Mispronunciations that Piss Me Off:

    Libary

    Melk

    Warshington

    Mitchigan (with a hard rather than a soft 'ch')

    and the whole really/real thing. ow.

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  26. fronty,
    I am so glad that you offered to scarcifice yourself on behalf of all of us guys (and I suspect a few of the women) regarding the avalanche of imagery that ensued following the announcement of awaiting's'shower'plans. Although I was tempted..I knew that if I waited long enough someone else would fold like a carnival tent.
    Thank You.

    chaucers bitch,
    Ah Michigan Outdoors was on PBS last night...how I relish with unbridled glee the madcap antics of those zany 'conservationists' who love to kill anything that moves in the Sportsman's Paradise of Missedagain!
    Poor PBS has to go to air with the YouTube ready escapades of bow hunters safely hiding up in a tree while another 'nature nut' is videotaping this magnificent display of mankind's supremecy over the animal kingdom!
    Thwack! The arrow slices into the heart or lungs of the deer or bear that has arrived for the free food. Ooh aah!
    How fascinating it is to watch the victims squeal in shock as they spin around and gallop off before they are exsanguinated. I especially enjoy how the stealthy hunter follows the blood trail and nudges the carcass with the tip of his bow...is it dead son?...poke..poke...Yup..congratulations!!!!
    Now that's entertainment!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Eh?

    You are going to create an awfully big con-TROV-er-see with this one, Bucko.

    Take the Him-ALL-yuhs and shove 'em where the sun don't shine.

    You are the worldwide president of mispronounciation based on silly regionalization theories.

    But I agree with your premise that we in Canada have so completely sterilized the English language that the world will eventually follow.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous10:05 am

    English is like kudzu.

    "The reason that we Canadians had to fix English is because like every other problem in the world, the United States really screwed it up. "

    Now hold on just a goddamn second! Not everything is our fault. Just the shit that's happened in the last...

    um

    Yeah. Okay. You win.

    Anyway, on to your question.

    This could get me killed.

    Axe for Ask. That mispronunciation just Makes. Me. Crazy.

    Irregardless

    Notwithstanding

    Continuously

    I also hate the metric system. Will Canada abolish that, please?

    ReplyDelete
  29. Chaucer's Bitch: OMG! MELK drives me up a friggin' wall. It's got an I, not an E~!

    Also - Niche. It's not a rhyme for Quiche. NiTCH like Bitch, y'all~!

    Accessory. There are two C's in there.
    ACK-Cessory. NOT= UH-Cessory.

    And Nevada. Nevadans say it with an A in the middle like Bat, or Cat.
    NOT= Nuh - Vahhhhhh - Duh. I mean, duh!

    Enchilada, envelope, enfrijoladas - it's all the same. Spanish EN, is NOT = Ahhhn. NOT= Ahhhhn-chilada. It's Ennnn-chilada.

    Seriously. I know I'm a snob about it, but come ON~! I want to smack all those in that "niche," "irregardless" whether they live in "Nevada" and eat "Enchiladas," while wearing "Accessories" or not.

    Thanks HE. One of my peeves is taken care of.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous10:33 am

    withinsky,
    You mean those of us who speak Central Canadian Standard English!
    One must not forget the colourful tones of other Canadians such as the Newfies,
    'Eyez de Bie dat Buillls da boatz' and the Franglais of mes amis dans la belle province du Quebec such as EX-Prime Minister Chretien who spoke
    'tree langwidge, h'english da best!'
    Him MALL yuhs!

    laura elizabeth!,
    I thought that rappers were the only humanoids that said AXED?
    I am on a mission to abolish the Metric System. The weather forecast on my computer is proudly displayed in FARENHEIT!
    It is so ridiculous because now we have a dual system so that everybody knows what the hell they are purchasing! aaarrrggh!

    If you go to a lumber store you still buy 2 by 4s..I don't know of a single soul who tells the clerk that he is building a wall with 38 x 89 studs 600 mm o.c.
    What the hell is that?

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  31. The word: Primer.

    And is it Primmmer, or Pr-eye-mer?

    I've heard that one both ways. Definitely AC/DC.

    ReplyDelete
  32. tidalgrrl,
    Seals and Crofts song Diamond Girl*
    tidalgrrrl...doo doo
    You sure do shine...doo doo

    Wow I really hit a nerve EH!
    It is fun to be word snob because you are not really hurting anybody and who the hell is going to preserve our language if we don't do it?
    There are a lot of lazy talkers out there...use your face muscles and make the effort you lazy bastards! I am glad to have been of service.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Tidal:

    Easy way to remember:

    If it's on your Chevy, long I and low resale value

    If it's in your desk or bookshelf, short I

    ReplyDelete
  34. Tidalgrrrrl,
    'Merkin: prim-er
    Brit: prahy-mer
    Can: purreye-murrr

    ReplyDelete
  35. Frontier Editor:
    (Hmmm...FE for short, so do we call you the IRON MAN?)

    *cough* Okay, back to the back.

    You gave some GREAT advice. I'll remember that. I knew there were distinctions, and that I just hadn't heard them yet. :)

    HE: Iron Man beat you to the punch, so you need to be a bit quicker on the draw. (grin) Anyway, I think he's more-righter than youse are.

    Can you BELIEVE that people here in Wisconsin (and YES I let the Farve subject go since I don't watch football) say "youse." I mean, WTF?

    I couldn't believe it the first time. I thought the person was being funny. Cause you know, I say silly stuff all the time too, like "internets" and "republican."

    Speaking of that - have you heard that Ted Haggard admits to smoking pole? HAHA! Those poor gay-bashing Evangelicals have lost their leader to another man. I feel such...uh...sympathy. Yah, that's it.

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  36. Why don't we all just talk country? I mean, come on, when a girl says "Getchin yer burt ovah heah right nah" isn't that just the sexiest!

    ReplyDelete
  37. tidalgrrrl,
    Smokin' pole! HA. Another one bites the dust.
    Why is it always them fellers what cumplains the most about hummaseksals that turns out to be in the damn closet!!!
    Why oh why oh why!

    awaitin',
    Heck fire darlin' I already commenced a talkin' in just such a manner as you sujested.
    Git yer best Daisy Dukes on and start tha reverlusion!YEE HAW!

    ReplyDelete
  38. please only pronounce vegetable and comfortable with 3 syllables and I'll be happy <):o)

    ReplyDelete
  39. Tidal,

    Hmmm, now I have a good excue to start humming Black Sabbath's Iron man more often >B^D>

    And not only is the probably now-ex leader of the National Council of Evangelicals partial to hot, sweaty, illicit, extramarital, PAID homosexual sex, but it turns out that he enjoys a spot of crank as an appetizer. Geting up-to-the-minute information like this is why it pays to listen to National Public Radio, boys and girls.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Anonymous1:51 pm

    http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors

    ^^ Common Errors in English Usage

    FE, aka Iron Man, crank? Is that meth? (gotta go look that up now) The wheels are really coming off the bus, aren't they?

    Naturally this will be Canada's fault. Or Bill Clinton's.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Anonymous2:38 pm

    ziggi,
    Your wish,
    is my co-mman-d.

    fronty,
    Iron man indeedy doo!
    Christmas came early this year for the Democrats.
    Now if that isn't a *sign then what is?

    laura e,
    Let's all sing:
    "The wheels on the bus fell
    OFF OFF OFF
    OFF OFF OFF!"

    or you could listen to South Park's Blame Canada.

    ReplyDelete
  42. AAARRRGGHH!
    BLOGGER
    I
    AM
    NOT
    ANONYF*CKINMOUS!!

    ReplyDelete
  43. HE:

    Why r u sometimes anonymous? Clearly you have struck a cord of wood here.

    ReplyDelete
  44. This is hardly the time or place to discuss striking the wood.

    ReplyDelete
  45. With a match to set it alight, I should add, for all the use I'm getting out it at the moment.

    Perv. I'm telling Allie.

    Word verification: gewwy.

    ReplyDelete
  46. You know what really gets me is when at some point someone decides that the pronunciation of a word should change -like the word harrass. It used to pronounced here as harr-ass (as in the way that you guys over there would say "ass"). Now it's pronounced "harris" . That gives me the poops (we don't say poops like you guys do -it's more like...uumm. think..think...puups).
    Another one is the word hostel - used to be hos-tel, but now it's supposed to be said like "hostil". That makes me hostile! They can stick those 2 words up their ring! I say them the old way and take delight in doing so!! Can't you tell!!!!!

    (it's a pity that everyone wouldn't go metric-everything in 100's and 1000's - so very easy :) )

    ReplyDelete
  47. outwith inwith,
    Get your mind out of the gutter.
    She has already read it so neener!

    Lee,
    I would love to find out who decides how we will pronounce certain words THIS decade.
    I know that metric is easier, it is way easier, it just doesn't have any soul.

    Look if I say today was 70 degrees outside but lets go to the beach tomorrow because it is going to be 93! Compare that to 20 and 34, which if you grew up listening to the weather in Farenheit like I did,
    sounds cold and inconsequential.

    ..that thud that you just heard was my argument falling flat on its ass. I sound like some 90 year old curmudgeon!

    See there 90! What if we aged in metric..
    I'd be 10..
    hey maybe I am on to something here.

    ReplyDelete
  48. I'm gonna take Lee's side on this:

    As a model builder, it's so much easier to translate full-size measurements to scale measurements. You try converting, say, a 32-foot wingspan to 1/48 scale in English measurements and to decimal equivalents and then come back to me and say English measurements make more sense.

    And when it comes to everyday stuff, how easy can it get? Water freezes at 0, water boils at 100.

    And as for the language, how cool can you get when you say "The store is 2 klicks down the road," or "I've got a mechanical pencill with a 0.5 mike-mike lead"?

    Eh? Eh? Eh?

    ReplyDelete
  49. And I think it should disturb everyone in this post chain that Laura E and I both know the street name for methamphetamine.

    Damn bugs crawling under my skin . . . gotta go scratch . . . .


    lfasf: how half of Belfast gives their address just before last call

    ReplyDelete
  50. fronty,
    Oh for heaven sake I know that it is easier to divide by 10...
    I JUST WANT TO HEAR THE TEMPERARURE IN FARENHEIT!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  51. grumblicious!!
    We have ex-PM Chretien who is sort of a Canuckistan version of Borat.
    I am sure that he is bored by now and good be seduced out of exile on Elbe.
    Hopefully he could speed up our present foreign policy program which is basically to dissolve all of our global good neighbour status that we built upon for two generations.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Lemme tell you how bad it is. In my part of the country, you ask th etemperature and all you hear is "It's hot enough to get a church matron to strip" or "It's cold enough to make Hillary seem hot and bothered," or "It's plantin time for shellie beans."

    Try converting THAT to fahrenheit!!

    ReplyDelete
  53. fronty,
    HA! Cold enough to make Hillary seem HOT!...did Tom DeLay send you that one.You had better start being nice to your next PRESIDENT.

    Hey while I am on the subject how did Karl Rove manage to make FrankenKerry's little comment on soldiers being dumbasses into a huge deal when it has ZERO relevence to the election????

    Shame on the media for biting into that! Booo Booo. When are they ever going to learn???

    ReplyDelete
  54. Let me tell you a joke that may put Kerry Boy into perspective, or maybe not, but allow me . . .


    A guy ends up in prison. On his first day, he's walking around the exercise yard and he hears people saying various numbers and making the other prisoners crack up in laughter.
    "What's the deal," the new guy asks.

    "It's easy," his cellmate tells him. "We've all heard just about every joke in existence, and we gave them all numbers to save time telling them. Since everyone knows them, they can laugh at the good ones without having to listen to the same joke told in its full length."

    The cellmate offers a demonstration, telling another prisoner "3617." The prisoner busts out laughing.

    "That's pretty neat," the new guy says. "Can I try one?"

    "Sure," says the cellmate. The new guy goes over to the prisoner and says "982." The prisoner looks at him like he's an idiot.

    "What happened?" the new guy asks his cellmate.

    "Hey, it's all in the delivery," says the cellmate.

    ReplyDelete
  55. fronty,
    HAHAHAHA..good one..poor misunderstood FrankenKerry could screw up saying Hi.

    ReplyDelete
  56. nekked,
    I know, I know. It is hard to sit and watch the English language be 'too good at its job' and absorb everything into its piehole until it collapses under its own weight....oh well WAYGD?
    (whatareyagonnado)

    ReplyDelete
  57. I will stick to QUEEN'S ENGLISH.

    Stiff upper lip!

    ReplyDelete
  58. gautami,
    Hrrrumph,
    My word gautami, I dare say Jolly Good Show..Bloody well right.

    HA! Central Canadian Standard English shall prevail...
    mark my words.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Just putting my 2 cents in to gripe about "artic" and "Antartica"-- it doesn't sound cold enough without the second "c"...

    ReplyDelete
  60. hello firebird,
    Arctic sounds like you are trying to say it with your tongue stuck to a frozen pole..arctic..WHAT..arc..tic!

    ReplyDelete

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