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Coffee’s on!
Today’s movie line: “I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn’t get the money… and I didn’t get the woman.”
HT: Scott R.
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Off-key
Double Indemnity?
I couldn’t get this posted:
SYDNEY - Even for someone as gaffe-prone as U.S. President George W. Bush, he was in rare form on Friday, confusing APEC with OPEC and transforming Australian troops into Austrians.
Bush’s tongue started slipping almost as soon as he started talking at a business forum on the eve of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney.
“Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction,” he told Prime Minister John Howard. “Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit.”
Later in his speech, Bush recounted how Howard had gone to visit “Austrian troops” last year in Iraq. There are, in fact, no Austrian troops there. But Australia has about 1,500 Australians military personnel in and around the country.
Upon finishing his speech, Bush took the wrong way off-stage and, looking slightly perplexed, had to be re-directed by Howard to a center-stage exit.
But not before a veteran White House correspondent seized the opportunity to ask Bush whether there had been any new message in his speech. Apparently misunderstanding the question, he bristled and asked, “Haven’t you been listening to my past speeches?” before turning away.
One of his highest-profile gaffes came in May when, at a welcoming ceremony for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, he nearly placed her in the 18th century.
Then there was the famous incident at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg in 2006 when Bush, unaware he was on camera, greeted British Prime Minister Tony Blair with the words “Yo Blair.”
Bush’s sometimes muddled syntax and mispronunciation of words like nuclear (”nukular”) have long been fodder for late-night TV comedians. But aides say his folksy style has helped endear him to Middle America.
More of the same.
Musing wins! Double Indemnity is correct.
Is Musing launching another streak of Whirled Views quote-guessing dominance? Stay tuned…
$$$$
Lynn Vincent post 3,
and in the context of charity, I freely donate my digital cash to the digitally impoverished.
P.S. I preferred the digital coke, but it is your rules and I try diligently to play by them!
on “nukular”: I wish he would learn to pronounce it correctly, but he’s not the only one. Former vice-presidential candidate Walter Mondale was kinda famous for pronouncing “nuclear” the same way, as I recall.
President Carter pronounced it the same way, RR, but I don’t recall donato ever slapping him for it.
Austria/Australia gaffe:
Reminds me of Dumb and Dumber where Jim Carrey’s character meets a beautiful woman. He asks her where she’s from and she says “Austria.”
Carrey responds with “Austria. Well, g’day mate! Let’s put another shrimp on the barbie!”
President Carter pronounced it the same way, RR, but I don’t recall donato ever slapping him for it.
When was Carter last President? Over twenty years ago? Do you have proof that Donato didn’t make fun of him?
I didn’t vote for Carter. Just an impression he was an idiot. Some times you have to trust your instincts.
We don’t all have to be phonetic genuiuses to be intelligent. Has any here heard of the multiple intelligences theory?
Musing, you could, of course, donate three-quarters of your digital cash to the digitally impoverished, while reserving the remainder to purchase a digitally Coke — which are available virtually anywhere
Carter who was trained as a nuclear engineer in the US Navy was famous for another dialect problem. This arose from a mixup on the words “impotent” and “important”
Rosalynn Carter said the Shah of Iran who spoke English with an accent was talking to Carter about the Arab League. The shah regarded the League as an “impotent” organization. Carter, he of the Jawja accent heard the shah and remarked that in the USA we too regarded the League as being “important” but he said it so as to sound just like the shah. Mrs Carter remarked that at that time she saw no point in interceding to clarify the words!
And then I once hear of an American kid who thought his flight was to Oakland CA but wound up going all the way across the Pacific to Aukland New Zealand!
Lynn Vincent post 10,
but that would be virtually wonderful!!!!
Can I go to your virtual lunch counter?
President Carter was not an idiot, stupid or ignorant. He was just wrong as socialists tend to be. He epitomized the left of his day. Today’s lefties are just President Carter on steroids and as a result they are more socialistic and wrong. They are epidomized by their party leadership.
LLama, I read a great expose “The Real Jimmy Carter”. I think like a lot of southern Democrats of his day he never did much thinking about issues from any sort of ideological perspective beyond “Will this help elect me?” I recall a picture of him with the pre-Repentant George C Wallace. Obviously designed to win over the segregationist Demo majority.
When Carter went national the DNC was still in the sclerotic grip of LBJ-inspired libs and warmed-over McGovernites. He had a good pool of the old “Scoop Jackson-style” Democrats from which to choose a cabinet. His failure to put them in govt set the stage for the later “Reagan Democrats” like Dr Jeane Kirkpatrick and Dr Bill Bennet to morph into full-blown Republicans.
Incidently, I read that Arnold Schwarznegger’s father-in-law (Sergeant Schriver) was the last ProLife Democrat to be on a national ticket in 1972. Recently Jimmy Carter conceded that by becoming the “Party of Death” (Roe v Wade Uber Alles) the Dems had hurt themselves irreparably.
Even a broke clock is right twice a day.
On “nu-ku-lar,” I read recently that that is the way “insiders” pronounce it–those who work in the nuclear field. It sounds wrong to the rest of us, but it isn’t incorrect. Like people in come cities pronouncing their own cities’ names differently from the way anyone else in the country pronounces it. That fascinated me; I always assumed Carter just pronounced it wrong, and then we got Bush and he does too.
BTW, you probably read that here. I did. Not much of an indication that it’s true.
Anyhow, “insiders” don’t get to decide on correct pronunciation. Is oilman properly pronounced awlman?
#16, no I don’t think I read it here; my memory is that I read it in a published biography, but I don’t remember which one (or who the biography was about; I’ve read a bunch of them this summer). But I could be wrong, and could have read it here.
Here it is officially from Merriam-Webster on the web (www.m-w.com):
Pronunciation: ‘nü-klE-&r, ‘nyü-, ÷-ky&-l&r
usage Though disapproved of by many, pronunciations ending in \-ky&-l&r\ have been found in widespread use among educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors, congressmen, United States cabinet members, and at least two United States presidents and one vice president. While most common in the U.S., these pronunciations have also been heard from British and Canadian speakers.
KevinB, I thought this was more clearly stated by Merriam-Webster:
We do not list either the \ ÷feb(y)wer \ pronunciation of February or the \÷ nü-kyl(r) \ pronunciation of nuclear as “acceptable”; we merely list them as commonly used pronunciations. Both of those pronunciations are clearly preceded by the obelus mark \ ÷ \ (which looks like a division sign). 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 Key to Pronunciation Symbols. We are definitely not advocating that anyone should use those pronunciations or that they should abandon the others that are regarded as more acceptable.
http://www.m-w.com/help/faq/pronounce.htm
Gosh you people are tiresome today. Yawn.
And you can hear it pronounced by clicking the links below:
Male Voice
Female Voice
donato- Remember, Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, so the magnetic pull is opposite. Perhaps Mr. Bush’s tongue was being twisted the opposite way, so he made those gaffs.
Either that or jet lag was affecting his brain.
I guess the links aren’t working here today…
Female:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?nucle01m.wav=nuclear
Male:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?nuclea01.wav=nuclear
“Gosh you people are tiresome today. Yawn.”
Let’s talk about Larry Craig instead!
I was in the Nuclear Navy, and neither I nor any of my colleagues pronounced it nu-kyu-ler, but I don’t see it as absolute proof of ignorance.
Japanese people can’t pronounce the letter “l” as we do, either. It hasn’t hurt them, apparently.
My husband’s pet peeve is the pronunciation of the word “often” with the “t” not being silent. It was always taught in school as being correctly spoken with that “t” silent. However, today most of the talking heads pronounce the “t”. There have been many changes in pronounciation and grammer since we were in school. I am sure that Chas can testify to that. The word Karoake is often pronounced in different ways. I have a friend who always tells me she is flustrated about this or that. She does not realize she is pronouncing it wrongly. I see no reason to not treat her with grace and overlook it. I think the same with all this silliness about putting someone down for an error in grammer or pronunciation or spelling.
KI:
I don’t think I’d ever heard that about the “t” being silent in “often.” I suppose I’ve probably heard it pronounced both ways, but I’d never noticed. I’m more apt to notice common spelling errors (it’s/its errors, commitment spelled as committment, etc.).
I hadn’t heard it either, Cheryl, but KI is correct.
Main Entry: of·ten
Pronunciation: ‘o-f&n, ÷’of-t&n
Function: adverb
Etymology: Middle English, alteration of oft
: many times : FREQUENTLY
The “÷” denotes the errant pronunciation. Learn sumpthin new every day.
When was Carter last President? Over twenty years ago? Do you have proof that Donato didn’t make fun of him?
If I remember correctly, Carter was President from 1976 (january of ‘77) to January of 1981, on the very day the Iranian hostages were freed (ironically!!!).
No, I don’t have proof that Donato didn’t make fun of him back then, but I do have proof that he has not made fun of him since I’ve been on this blog (a simple search of his comments proves this to be the case).
When a person is President, he is still referred to as President the rest of his life on earth.
What’s your point, other than to be contrary like usual?
So, we’ll have two President Clintons when Senator Clinton takes office? I’m looking forward to President Clinton 42 donning his apron to hand out cookies in the press room each morning. And at formal events it will be: “I present to you President and President Clinton.” Neat!
What? Your clock is a little fast! It is only 5:30 CDT on Sep 7, and tomorrow’s WV thread is posted, dated 5:00 AM 9/8/07. Am I writing in the future? Cool! (Of course, when I tried posting this on that thread I got a message saying the thread did not exist.)
As for the movie quote on the yet to be posted thread, it definitely was not a feminist. Could it be from “The Odd Couple”? (And if I am right, do I still get the cash, even though I am 11½ hours early?)
Re: pronunciation of often:
I grew up in the Southwest with parents from New York City. I never heard the ‘t’ pronounced until I met my Iowa born-and-raised future wife. Now I hear it all the time. It must be a Midwest thing.
She also grew up saying “boughten” for things bought in the store as opposed to home-grown. I never heard that either, but it is common in her family. (I had to check the dictionary, and there it was!)
“What? Your clock is a little fast! It is only 5:30 CDT on Sep 7, and tomorrow’s WV thread is posted, dated 5:00 AM 9/8/07. Am I writing in the future? Cool! (Of course, when I tried posting this on that thread I got a message saying the thread did not exist.)”
Outkast was questioning the author of post 49 on another thread. He was post 43. Weird things with time travel going on?
hamachi- I was not referring to outkast, as I hadn’t even read his post. I was referring to an obvious quirk in the WMB software that allowed me to see a thread with a time stamp fro tomorrow (it is no longer there).
And I googled the future movie quote and found I was wrong. But I won’t spoil it for anyone else, and will probably get on too late to win tomorrow’s cash. Too bad, I could sure use it for a virtual home makeover.
Seems the right amount of virtual cash can corrupt the best of us.
I saw it too, Peter, but wondered if it might have been a tessarct, given Madeleine L’Engle’s death . . .
In other news…
The Archdiocese of San Diego used a couple of hundred million dollars of its taxpayer subsidized funds to pay victims of priestly child abuse and…
In my home state, a pastor was accused of abusing several young congregants. Not especially remarkable, but it seems the Church of God covered it up and one of the accusers grew up to become another pastor in the same church.
Here’s the link:
It should be chilling for anyone with a kid who has a close relationship with a pastor.
http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/9576087.html
I often wander off to other smaller Christian blogs, just to give them a hard time, which is a hobby of mine.
I recently had one very short discussion with somebody who called himself an old earth creationist, which is slightly less insane than young earth creationists.
I told him I couldn’t think of one thing a god would be necessary for, but he came up with a long list of problems that he said required the intervention of Mr. God, all of which have been or soon will be solved by scientists. In other words science has or will make all his reasons for invoking God unnecessary.
He surprised me when he said our moon must have been “designed”. Translation: God Did It.
I pointed out that scientists have known a long time, based on a large amount of evidence, it’s very likely our moon was formed after an object about the size of Mars crashed into Earth, about 4.5 Billion years ago, about 100 million years after our Sun was born.
But this creationist, for some strange reason, thinks it was supernatural magic.
I will probably never find out, but I wonder if there are many here who also would invoke God to explain the creation of our moon. We have only one moon, but our solar system has dozens of moons. Moons are all over the place. Certainly there are zillions of planets and moons all over the universe, and every single one of them formed naturally. Why do some religious people want to invoke God for something as simple as the formation of stars, planets, and moons? I don’t get it.
The phenomenon of nervous speakers not wishing to appear ignorant so erroneously pronouncing letters in a word when the sound had dropped out long ago–as in “off-ten”–is a form of hyperurbanization.
Another false correction is mistrust of the adverb “bad,” and the desire to say “badly” instead. For example, “I felt badly that I wasn’t able to help him.”
But the worst, and VERY common, is that in an effort to distance themselves from such ignorant constructions as “Him and me went to the store,” many presumptively educated speakers eschew the word “me” and the other direct-object forms (”him” “her,” “them,” “us”) altogether.
Thus, you hear things like, “I hope you will pray for Jim and I,” or “The Holy Spirit gives she and I the power to (whatever).”
Well, hamachi, since neither of us leaves an email address, I could only tell you here, and that would mean everyone finding out. Probably our B.D. will change the quote now to some Disney film and leave us both high and dry.
michelle- What do you mean by tessarct?
kwerna- What I find funny is people who go even farther and use ‘I’ as a possessive form as well, such as “my wife and I’s house…”
Peter, it was worth a try. I would probably turn off the alarm and go back to sleep anyway…
On a more interesting note, there is a story form the APEC summit in Australia. It appears “Osama” was within 10 meters of our President’s hotel. Serious security breakdown. Video and the story is here.
APEC Fake Motorcade Carrying “Osama” Gets 10 Meters From Bush Hotel
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/06/apec-fake-motorcade-carrying-osama-gets-10-meters-from-bush-hotel/
Kwerna,
It bothers me when people use “myself” for the same reason. One pastor in a previous church of mine did that frequently: “Trevor and myself are going.” I had to grit my teeth every time he said “myself” instead of “me” or “I.”
Peter L, #41 - A tesseract is a wrinkle in time, according to L’Engle’s book by that name. It’s been a long time since I read the book, so I don’t remember how the tesseract works; I just remember the definition!