Thuh Boston Globe’s Christopher Muther got two full pages of Tuesday’s G section to rail against thuh non-literal use of “literally” in virtually every area of American society.
But thee umbrage at thuh Global Worldwide Headquarters is aimed at a different linguistic transgression:
The Vanishing Pronunciation of “The” Before a Vowel Sound.
From thee EnglishClub.com:
How to Pronounce “the” in English
Normally, we pronounce “the” with a short sound (like “thuh”). But when “the” comes before a vowel sound, we pronounce it as a long “thee”.
vowel sound we write we say A the apple thee apple E the egg thee egg I the ice-cream thee ice-cream O the orange thee orange U the ugli fruit thee ugli fruit
Okay? If the hardworking staff hears one more NPRnik refer to “thuh end of an era” in the network’s coverage of the News Corp(se) scandal, we’ll officially reach thee end of our rope.
P.S. What’s with the pronunciation of News Corp. as News Core? It’s not a branch of the military. Which, not to get technical about it, is spelled Corps.
Campaign Outsider 
Thee editors at NPR are also ace at ‘referring back’; editors ? Slip sliding away.
O tempora! O NPR!
While I intuitively agree that News Corp. has no silent p, the numbers and intellect of those making this ‘mistake’ on television in recent weeks has led me to question if this is some strange quirk of English. I found on this Oxford website the audio pronunciation is News Core. I would love some learned resolution on this.
http://www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com/dictionary/news-corp
Interesting, Chris. Learned resolution, though, is not exactly my strong suit.
I’m not afraid to be correct while media personalities are wrong. I don’t know where this mispronunciation of an abbreviation came from but that’s exactly what it is: a mispronunciation.
It’s all Stephen Colbair’s fault.
As are so many things.
Very glad for the ‘P.S.” as this is the only mention I could find online. I have the same problem w/ the media pronouncing it as “News Corps” … I also came to the Oxford online dictionary and listened to the pronunciation. I was shocked to hear the pronunciation as “core” like “corps” like a military term. The rationale “But that’s how everyone else is saying it” does not justify that it’s a completely inaccurate pronunciation of the abbreviation. I only hope that anyone else searching the internet about this will come across this page as I did and read what we’ve said here. How am I supposed to respect the work of journalists who do not even know what they are saying? How could anyone who knows what News Corporation is call it “News Core” ?
Again, we will be forced to accept the dumbing down consequences of our American public education system just as the elimination of cursive handwriting instruction.WHO is that makes these decisions?? WHO are THESE PEOPLE? Rather than set the bar and maintain standards, take the sloppy way out. Never mind being accountable… these seem like trivial points but I think they are indicative of greater perils.
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