Although Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s star has faded, the erstwhile weight lifter-actor-governor hasn\u2019t quite left the building. Recently, a phonics teacher e-mailed her exasperation with broadcasters who mispronounce the first syllable in \u201cSchwarzenegger,\u201d saying \u201cswartz\u201d instead of \u201cshwartz.\u201d \u201cThere IS a difference!\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s gotten to the point that it\u2019s like nails on a chalkboard when I hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for me, I\u2019ve heard it \u201cswartz,\u201d \u201cshwartz,\u201d \u201cshvartz,\u201d and even \u201cshvozz.\u201d I\u2019ve heard it three, four, and five syllables. The man\u2019s name is a minefield\u2014I wonder if anyone except him says it right. This may be the rare occasion when I have some compassion for announcers . . .<\/p>\n
Or maybe not. Shouldn\u2019t you broadcasters make it your business to know how to pronounce a name\u2014I mean, isn\u2019t that your job<\/em>? What else do we ask you to do besides saying the words right? OK, \u201cSchwarzenegger\u201d is one thing, but how about a common American name of six letters: To most people, former Vice President Dick Cheney is \u201cCHAY-nee.\u201d But in the early days of the George W. Bush administration, Cheney\u2019s wife announced that the proper pronunciation of the family name was \u201cCHEE-nee.\u201d No one paid attention. Now, all these years later, the only broadcaster who\u2019s careful to say \u201cCHEE-nee\u201d is MSNBC\u2019s Chris Matthews.<\/p>\n No one butchers names like sportscasters: Back in the 1960s, the Chicago White Sox baseball team acquired a pitcher named Johnny Buzhardt. Then a strange thing happened: Up till then, his name had always been pronounced \u201cBUZZ-hart,\u201d but when the Sox got him, their great announcer Bob Elson started calling him \u201cBuh-ZARD.\u201d The pitcher\u2019s wife only added to the confusion when in an on-air interview she quipped, \u201cI\u2019m Mrs. Buh-ZARD, wife of Johnny BUZZ-hart.\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s go to some more misbegotten ear-torturers:<\/p>\n Short-lived<\/strong> This is not the lived<\/em> of \u201cShe lived well.\u201d The i<\/em> is long, as it is in \u201clive entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n Integral<\/strong> Why do so many people say \u201cin-tra-gul\u201d despite the spelling? It\u2019s \u201cin-ta-grul.\u201d<\/p>\n February<\/strong> See that r<\/em> after the b<\/em>? You do? Apparently we\u2019re in the minority. Every year in late winter, I wince to turn on the radio or TV and hear \u201cFeb-yoo-ary\u201d (or \u201cFebber-ary\u201d). Is \u201cFeb-roo-ary\u201d really so hard?<\/p>\n Controversial<\/strong> Four syllables, not five. Say \u201ccon-tra-VER-shul,\u201d not \u201ccon-tra-ver-see-ul.\u201d<\/p>\n Et cetera (etc.)<\/strong> Pronounced \u201cick-settera\u201d by high-paid communicators who mysteriously think et<\/em> is pronounced \u201cick.\u201d<\/p>\n Dour<\/strong> The correct pronunciation is \u201cdoo-er.\u201d<\/p>\n Schism<\/strong> Two things about this word: you rarely hear it, and when you do, it\u2019s wrong: don\u2019t say \u201cskizzum,\u201d say \u201csizzum.\u201d<\/p>\n Heinous, grievous, mischievous<\/strong> First, please note there\u2019s no i<\/em> before the o<\/em> in these words. Why, then, have I heard seasoned professionals say \u201chee-nee-us\u201d? It\u2019s \u201chay-nus.\u201d Similarly, \u201cgrievous\u201d is a two-syllable word: \u201cGREE-vus.\u201d The most tortured is the third one, which so many mindlessly pronounce \u201cmis-CHEE-vee-us.\u201d Make that \u201cMIS-cha-vus.\u201d<\/p>\n READERS ON THE CASE!<\/strong> Still, we can\u2019t escape the feeling that we\u2019ll be revisiting the gone missing question\u2026<\/p>\n This grammar tip was contributed by veteran copy editor and word nerd Tom Stern.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Although Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s star has faded, the erstwhile weight lifter-actor-governor hasn\u2019t quite left the building. Recently, a phonics teacher e-mailed her exasperation with broadcasters who mispronounce the first syllable in \u201cSchwarzenegger,\u201d saying \u201cswartz\u201d instead of \u201cshwartz.\u201d \u201cThere IS a difference!\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s gotten to the point that it\u2019s like nails on a chalkboard when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-pronunciation"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWe thank everyone for the spirited response to last week\u2019s readers\u2019 challenge for an alternative to \u201cThe man went missing two days ago.\u201d Our favorites: \u201cThe man has been missing for two days\u201d and \u201cThe man was last seen two days ago.\u201d<\/p>\n