No. 13: Better Verbal Communication
August 30th 2008 16:49
Observing the roadside
Today's post will stick to some problems with the spoken word. Please allow me a preface, as usual -- In no way, am I purporting to be an expert. After all, I was at least 50 years of age before I learned the proper pronunciation of the word siren. For my first half century, I said "sy-reeen." This is the way I had accentuated what I had heard, and was subconsciously selective in hearing it from my earliest years onward. This is usually the way most of us process all incoming sensory stimuli. (Sorry for the heavy sentence. We can have a later post on this down the road.)
In spite of knowing the sources and whys for our ways of speaking, perhaps we can all strive to make ourselves better at the spoken word. Maybe this will help elevate us in respect and our personal self esteem.
One observation this six-decades-old has made is people are lazy in general. Generally speaking, we are like water. We take the path of least resistance. Yes, the natural reaction to this statement is to think of hard-working, type A personalities we all recognize who do not fit this description -- maybe even you. But, in one particular area, laziness is as obvious as a cold sore. This is in the degree of attention most pay to verbal speech.
Many of us have witnessed foreign exchange students who excited us when we heard them speak. Their attention to pronunciation, diction, and detail was inspirational. Why did it seem to us they were better at speaking our own language than those of us who were raised with it? Could it have been they wanted to impress everyone with their ability to speak it as properly as possible? (I suppose if we went back to their native countries, we might find people who may ask the same of their foreigners.)
The main language used in science, international air traffic control, and commerce is English. This may be because we have an exceptionally eclectic language. The English language borrows words and phrases from other languages and dialects all the time. As a result, English has a reputation for being a very definitive language.
In the U.S., there is a strong movement to make English the official language in all verbal and written communication due to the rapid influx of illegal immigrants who resist adopting English. Many of those who scream the loudest for making English official are the ones who pay the least attention to speaking it properly.
"How about some examples?" you may ask. Okay, here are some. I hope you are not one of the offenders. I will use hyphens to show the main breaks in pronunciation.
Those who did not sleep in elementary school English classes, recognize that most dictionaries usually split the syllables between consonants. How often do we have a mental double take while hearing the former American president and his wife's last name pronounced as "Clint-uhn?" Sorry, the name is properly pronounced "Clin-ton." The same goes for moun-tain. It is not "mount-uhn."
"Another" is a compound word. It should not be spoken as "a-nother," but rather "an-other." The phrase, "at all," is just that--two words. My eyebrows furrowed when I heard Hugh Grant saying "a-toil" in the movie "Notting Hill."
Attention to detail would help us make the difference between "further"--a non-physical distance, and "farther"--a physical distance. Television weather people, and traffic reporters, are easily recognizable offenders of this one.
Ebonics aside, the word is "ask," not "axk" or "ax." It is "escape," not "axscape," or it is "especially," not "ax-specially." The word "specific" should not be pronounced as "pacific," which we all know is an ocean. It should be "consultation," not "counseltation." The proper word for the number four is pronounced the same as the word "fore." It should not be pronounced as "fo." There is an "r" there.
This brings up another difficulty with verbal laziness. The wide-awake children in grammar school were usually attentive to lifting their tongues toward the roofs of their mouths and making a quick draw on the mouth, diminishing its radius in a way that says "arrrrrrr" or "errrrr." Properly spoken English will emphasize the letter r and not pronounce it as "aahh" or just "ah." With all due respect, people in the Northeast U.S. and the U.K. appear to be the first, and most prominent, at neglecting this language essential.
Have we not all watched a movie, or television show, and heard some eliminate the letter t in words. It is "bot-tle," not "bahuhl." The same goes for "battle," not "ba-uhl." Even allowing for individual dialects, and personal preferences, confusion and chaos can be reduced by standardization and attention to the same.
It would be better when ending a word with the letter y, that we make it sound like "ee" (long e) not "eh." Words ending in the letter a do not necessarily have to have an r. Atlanta is not ever "Atlanter." (I bet you have heard this one.) The same goes for Australia.
Most of us have looked up words and recognize that even some current dictionaries take the lazy way out and have lessened their emphasis on proper word treatments. When comparing current ones to older ones, a person may question whether the publishers' hired hands were ignorant or just took the path of least resistance themselves.
The reader may say that all languages are dynamic. This is true, but in order for all of us to continue understanding one another each time we speak, with less confusion, perhaps it would be best to uphold basic standards and leave the changes to addition and subtraction in the word vocabularies.
If you have some additional words as examples, please feel free to mention them in the comments section below.
Our next post will be on written communication.
In the meantime, please keep it between the lines...
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