Toe in the Water

Don't Send Me the Memo

Don’t Send Me the Memo

Something weird is going on in the language. Words that I have known, heard, and generally become familiar with all my life are suddenly being pronounced in entirely new and odd ways. I don’t mean the occasional obvious mispronunciation by someone who has only read the word before. This seems to be a widespread conspiracy, with lots of people suddenly saying the word in the new way, as though a memo had gone out overnight instructing everyone to use the new pronunciation. And I never get the memo.

Not that I would go along with it anyway.

An example is what has happened to the word “divisive” recently. In the last few weeks, I’ve heard nobody pronounce it in the old (correct) way of “div-aye-siv.” Suddenly it seems that it’s being said as “di-viz-if.” Not only is it strange to my ear, it divorces the word from its origin, the word “divide.”

And that’s just the latest example. You can dismiss me as a dinosaur, but I refuse to be swayed by these sudden bouts of communal agreement to change pronunciation. If we’re to keep the language understandable, we need to stop going along with every mangled attempt at redefining the way words are spoken. If it was good enough for my ancestors, it’s good enough for me!

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