Month: May 2009

“sequenced dress”

Mispronunciations, Nouns, Verbs

I heard about this phrase yesterday at a party.

Problem:
The modifier of “dress” is incorrect.

Explanation:
My friends Erik and Nickie F. told me yesterday about this phrase.

It seems that someone was trying to refer to a dress made of sewn-together sequins.

Apparently the originator of the phrase “sequenced dress” heard the plural noun “sequins” — spelled S-E-Q-U-I-N-S — perhaps mispronounced as the verb “sequence” — spelled S-E-Q-U-E-N-C-E — and then added a “d” to make it an adjective to modify the noun “dress”.

The potential for things to go astray in the English language never ceases to amaze me.

Solution:
“sequined dress”

“pixilation” vs. “pixelation”

Nouns, Versus

I saw a technical document refer to “pixilation” when it should have referred to “pixelation” instead.

Problem:
The nouns “pixilation” and “pixelation” are not synonyms.

Explanation:
I was reviewing some technical documents about a month ago.

They referred to “picture pixilation” in the television signals coming from various set-top boxes.

They should have used “pixelation” — spelled P-I-X-E-L-A-T-I-O-N — instead of “pixilation” — spelled P-I-X-I-L-A-T-I-O-N.

The noun “pixie” — spelled P-I-X-I-E — was coined in the early 1600s to refer to a sprite or fairy, especially a mischievous one.

So the primary meaning of the noun “pixilation” is the state or quality of being pixilated — spelled P-I-X-I-L-A-T-E-D — which is an Americanism from the mid-1800s that combines the word “pixie” with the word “titillated” to mean amusingly silly, prankish, or whimsical.

The noun “pixel” — spelled P-I-X-E-L — was coined in the late 1960s as something of a contraction of “picture element” to refer to the smallest element of an image that can be managed and presented by a video display system.

And the primary meaning of the noun “pixelation” is the display of a digitized image such that the pattern of pixels is obvious to the naked eye.

Solution:
Think “pixie” when using “pixilation”. Think “pixel” when using “pixelation”.

Why do people say “Shavez” for Venezuela’s president?

Devolution toward Simpler, Foreign Languages, Mispronunciations

The notorious Hugo Chávez has been president of Venezuela, a Spanish-speaking country, since 1999.

I believe that many Americans ten years later still pronounce the “H” in his first name, even though the letter “h” in Spanish is silent, because of their ignorance about this aspect of the Spanish language.

Aggravating that ignorance, perhaps, is the fact that the name “Hugo” in American speech is often pronounced with a hard “H” — as when meteorologists repeatedly referred in 1989 to Hurricane Hugo.

What puzzles me more is the pronunciation of the C-H in his surname as if it were spelled S-H instead.

Many Americans know that they should pronounce the C-H in the Spanish words “chico” and “chihuahua” just as they pronounce the C-H in “church” and “chapel” and other English words.

But somehow they get thrown by the C-H in Chávez and end up pronouncing the name as if it were Shávez — with an S-H — instead.

Maybe the confusion comes from the S-H pronunciation of the beginnings of the surnames of such French personalities as Marc Chagall and Maurice Chevalier.

Given the strong influence of French on the English language, this could explain the mispronunciation of Chávez as Shávez.

Another explanation is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis: It is simpler to pronounce the “soft” S-H found in words such as “shoot” and “shout” than it is to pronounce the “hard” C-H found in words such as “chore” and “chow”.

What do you think? Let me know!