Only after moving to Montoursville in 1989 did I start to hear the phrase “Crick Road” — referring, of course, to our venerable byway, Lycoming Creek Road.
For those who squabble over this pronunciation, here’s the skinny:
Look up creek in a good dictionary and you’ll see something like kreek, krik.
That tells you, first of all, that dictionaries tend to sound out words phonetically (as in this case, taken from dictionary.com) — or with a set of standard sound-symbols.
More important, we note that there are indeed two ways to say the word — with the “preferred” pronunciation listed first.
To run through some other disputes I’ve mentioned here in recent columns (again, with the preferred version coming first):
Route can be root or rout. Data is either DAY-tuh or DAT-uh (in the latter, the “a” sounds like back). You can say coupon with koo- or kyoo-, though the former is preferred. And caramel, believe it or not, has three: CARE-uh-mul, CARE-uh-mel — or with two syllables and “arr”: CAR-mul.
Adding one other similar term: Sophomore can also be pronounced with two or three syllables — the latter being preferred: SOF-uh-mawr.
I include this additional example because, first, I love to mention its comical etymology. This involves the base soph-, meaning “wise” (as in philosophy — literally “love of wisdom”); and mor-, meaning “fool” (as in moron). So sophomores are at an age where they think they know everything, but don’t: wise fool. Ha ha! Parents of teens — you gotta love this.
And second, we sometimes hear a similar quibble over extra syllables in words like athlete (“ath-a-lete”), film (“fil-um”) or Huck Finn’s “drownded.”
The problem is that these three variations are not acceptable; you won’t find them in good dictionaries.
With a nod to Rudolph Verderber’s excellent textbook Speech for Effective Communication, we are dealing here with one of the four common errors in pronunciation — naturally called, in this case, addition.
One can also mispronounce by adding a sound, rather than an extra syllable — as in idear and warsh (with the equally misguided Warshington); or in a sentence like “Look at this drawling I made.”
The other three common types of mispronunciation are: substitution, omission and transposition.
Omission is particularly prevalent in speech — found in such shortenings as: ’em for them (i.e., the Eastwood Western Hang ’Em High); ’cause for because (sometimes spelled cuz); sump’m (for something); dunno, kinda, sorta and gonna; and the ever-present prob’ly. That last, let’s face it, usually comes out prolly … though it looks downright atrocious on the page.
And then there’s what may be our most radical abridgement (forgive me because I don’t know how to actually spell this): I’mma — as in “I’mma get in the car.” It’s amazing that this actually communicates, since it contracts no less than five syllables (“I am going to”) into a mere two!
Under “omission,” you might expect me to cover our habit of not making the “G”-sound in such slang as goin’ and nothin’. But you may be surprised to learn that this is actually substitution — that is, replacing one sound with another.
The reason involves a pronunciation issue that you prob’ly never thought about: There is no actual “N”-sound (“NNN”) in words like ring, long and coming. If there were, we’d say rinn-guh, which sounds ridiculous.
Go ahead: Say “NNN” — and note that the tip of your tongue is touching the back of your upper gumline. With “NG,” by contrast, the back of your tongue hits the “hard palate” — where the roof of your mouth gets soft at the back.
So: totally different sound = “substitution.”
Other more irritating substitutions:
Yer instead of your. Excape instead of escape (so common that my spell-checker just tried to fix it). The regional dis and dat for this and that. And the almost unavoidable jist and kin for just and can.
Finally, for nuclear — many say NOO-kyuh-lur, instead of the preferred NOO-klee-ur. Though this drives me stark-staring mad, it is now so pervasive that dictionary.com actually lists it as an option. Older dictionaries don’t — thank God.
Perhaps equally annoying is transposition, where two sounds are flipped — like with “S” and “K” in “asterisk”: asteriks.
Other common transpositions include perfer (instead of prefer), FEB-yoo-ary (should be FEB-roo-ary) and hunderd for hundred.
There are some folks who struggle and say aminal, emeny and more frequently cerfiticate — though these can be accidents from talking too fast.
I had a friend who couldn’t say certificate to save his life — and once, teaching Bible study, he told us we were all “hairs of Christ” (instead of heirs).
Ack — and some folks think it’s nit-picky to squabble over (mis)pronunciation.
Not if you say, “I am going to aks her on a date.”
Ouch.
