What's with the word "nuclear" and Republicans?

[pepperbear]

Palin couldn't pronounce it right all last night. Bush hasn't pronounced it right his entire career (Laura even took a potshot at him about it), and Rove also said "nucular" on Fox.

Is it supposed to be cute?

[Waya]

1. It's the 'Mark of the Beast'......

.....to identify Repukes..... secret password or some such thing.....distinguishing trait.....

[jobycom]

2. Jimmy Carter says nukular, and he's a nukular engineer.

It's a southern dialect. I think Rove started doing it to cover up Bush doing it, sort of the way you might remove your tie if your best friend shows up at a dinner without a tie, so that he won't feel so bad.

Palin, who knows? Someone should ask her to define it. She may have never heard of nuclear physics or energy until she heard Bush using the word.

[melody]

7. He has Cant speakers in his extended family I believe

"Nukular" (which, as I've mentioned elsewhere, means "Big Fire" in the Cant) comes from that.

[eShirl]

10. Which cant is "the" Cant ?

ah - nevermind, answered in your post below

[melody]

21. There is an inherent consistency to language which carries through a vocabulary

[phantom power]

3. I think it's become a sort of "tribal" thing...

They know that it annoys pointy headed intellectuals, and so that makes it a good thing. Sort of a "fuck you and your fancy book-lernin" dog-whistle.

[marshall]

13. It's a phenomenon called metathesis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics)

And of course the same people who say "nu-cu-lar" are probably turning around and laughing when an urbanite does the same thing with "let me 'aks' you a question" for "let me ask you a question".

[Bake]

19. Yeah, well, they BOTH drive me crazy.

Bake

[SilentSunlight]

4. It was incredibly stupid.

Forget policy, just strategy wise -- do you really want to use the Bush trademark mispronounciation of "Nuclear" when you are trying to distance yourself from being "Bush in heels"???

They are _so_ done.

[melody]

5. It's a redneck/southern thing

"Nukular" in the Cant (which is a common southern Travelers language that also is common in the UK ... it's a mixture of Gaelic and a few other things) means "big fire". It's similar to southern US kids calling a refrigerator an ice box versus a "fridge".

[TahitiNut]

6. Did you notice how proud she was to have learned to pronounce Ahmadinejad?

It was clear ... exactly like a 14-year-old who practiced all week until she got it.

"Look, ma! I got it!" Remarkable.

[NRaleighLiberal]

8. Have you noticed the general grammatical and spelling abilities of those on the right?

it just follows, that's all.

[ThoughtCriminal]

9. It makes me think of Major Kong from Dr Strangelove

Well I guess this is it boys, nuke-you-lar combat toe-to-toe with the Ruu-skies.

[Obamarama]

11. I think it's that they're so anti-intellectual that they don't fucking know what a nucleus is.

If they DID, they would know that the word nuclear is derived from the root word of nucleus, and they wouldn't mispronounce it.

[VWolf]

14. They do know what a nucleus is

They just pronounce it Nuculus

:sarcasm:

[Sal Minella]

18. I knew a kid years ago whose Science teacher DID say "nuke-yoo-lus."

[kestrel91316]

12. It has become a bit like the Castilian lisp. Because Bush says it,

others feel like they have to say it the same way, otherwise Bush might think someone is correcting him or making him look bad deliberately. We can't have that, now, can we?

[ITsec]

15. It's genetic. They're all related to each other....

Just like the inbreds in the movie Deliverance.

[Sal Minella]

16. I think it's intended to show disdain for the eggheads who pernounce words kreckly.

[codjh9]

17. They're dumb as a f-ing rock? :^)

[yardwork]

20. Republicans are stupid and most stupid people can't pronounce nuclear.

Most Republicans also struggle with alunimum, too. And anything French.