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The Center for Artificial Indifference

The Epenthesis of George W. Bush…

March 13th, 2006 | Category: Political Zoo, Weird Words

How many times must we be subjected to Bush’s nu-cu-ler? It is curious, disgusting, and frightening that a person could matriculate (no, Georgie, that is not a dirty word) and graduate from Yale, go on to be elected/selected Governor of a great state and then President of the United States, and still be so inept with American English. His language and communications skill levels must be about third grade, though I have known second graders who could construct better sentences, and ones that actually made sense!

The words to describe Bush’s general problems with the language are well know to us: inept, incompetent, stupid. At least we can credit him with consistency since his management and presiding styles incorporate these same characteristics, all tightly bonded together by a heavy application of unjustified arrogance. There is also a word to specifically describe his nu-cu-ler pronunciation.

epenthesis: n. the insertion or development of a sound or letter in the body of a word.
Examples: a-tha-lete instead of athlete, nu-cu-ler instead of nuclear, cum-ber-bund instead of cummerbund.

Prior to the next Presidential election, let us all spend a bit of time and energy focusing on questions such as:

  • Can the candidate make a speech or hold their half of a conversation without embarrassing us as a nation?
  • Can he or she make complete sentences without reading them from a teleprompter?
  • Can she or he read a teleprompter?
  • Does the candidate’s normal vocabulary include words of more than five letters?
  • Can the candidate correctly pronounce nuclear?

    • 5 Comments so far

    1. Joy March 13th, 2006 9:38 am

      After watching George up at the podium; I have both laughed and cried….but mostly cried.

    2. MaryB March 13th, 2006 11:05 am

      I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. His fan base loves that he says nu-cu-lar - so folksy and down-to-earth of him, doncha’ know. He knows how to say the word correctly - he plays it for all it’s worth with the lobotomized masses.

    3. Paul March 13th, 2006 9:42 pm

      I have heard some smooth talkers who possessed excellent diction and afine command of the English language whom I would trust no farther than I could throw them.

    4. Winston March 13th, 2006 9:48 pm

      I cry with Joy, right after I throw up.

      MaryB, hate to disagree with you, cause you’re almost always right, but he’s either an idiot for talking the way he does, or an idiot for trying to pull a fast one for the lobotomized crowd while continuing to talk that same way to foreign heads of state. No, I really think he just does not know any better.

      So, Paul, does this mean you can throw W or not?

    5. J. Alva Scruggs March 14th, 2006 3:40 pm

      I’ve noticed a new stridency to his speech style. It’s always been pouty defiant, but it has a more blustering edge to it now and the accent is phonier than it was a few years ago. Jimmy Carter, as I recall, also said “nucular” for nuclear. I do know other people who pronounce it that way, not all southerners either, for that matter, and it’s not an affectation for them.

      I couldn’t say one way or the other for Carter. For Bush, I think it’s a combination of affectation, laziness and shallowness of thought. The grown up right doesn’t make philistinism a point of pride. Clinton was coy about it, but did it nevertheless. Bush uses it as a weapon. Papa Doc Bush :-) never felt comfortable pandering for the lout vote, though he did make quite a (forgive me) splash for vomiting on the Japanese PM.