LEND ME YOUR EAR: WE ARE JUDGED BY WAY WE USE WORDS

What a time for my faithful Smith-Corona to go on holiday! With Thanksgiving drawing near, another column requested by readers at last in the til, a deadline to meet, and no repair service in our vicinity?

In desperation, I spent a few hours going bonkers over a new-style Smith-Corona. Fancy trying to write about misspelling and mispronunciation with automatic spell-check. I'd have had to master at least a hundred codes to achieve mistakes and corrections, and perhaps another hundred learning how to raise the bar across the paten so I could see what I was writing.

When the crisis hit me, nothing but the following was down on paper: "You say toMAHto, I say toMAYto. You say ONvelope, I say ENvelope. I say inKWYry, others say INkwery. And you know what? Everyone is right!

For the most part, my preferences are those of authorities and dictionary-panelists because my job is to set examples, though I have no quarrel with second choices. For a day or two, however, it looked as though another Nip and Tuck column would have to occupy the space reserved for Lend me your ear.

Mercifully, my luck changed for the better. The friend who had helped me acquire and return the monster machine had to go to St. Louis, and took my ailing fossil with him. He was back before bedtime that evening with the aged survivor in A-1 condition -- just in time for me to add another blessing to my list for Thanksgiving Day.

To continue with the column already in the making, I was about to add another example before moving on: How do you pronounce "Caribbean"? Natives of the islands fiercely resent "CarRIBbean," used by so many tourists from the United States. Caribbeans call themselves "CaribBEans," and lose no time in letting uppity travelers understand as much.

When I was a child, my aunt the handwriting teacher used a golden oldie to explain the pronunciation of the words "defense", "defeat", and "detail": "De cow jumped over de fence, and de feet went over before de tail." It was years before I discovered it was also acceptable to say DEEfense and DEEtail. Why consult a dictionary when you had an aunt who knew everything? It was also years before I realized I was learning something new every day. I still do. Doesn't everyone?

Recently, my watchdogs heard a network staffer pronounce "perfect" with the accent on the first syllable though he had used it as a verb. The verb form, granted this information is in order, is pronounced "perFECT." But then, if we were all PERfect, we would have no need of God. I once wrote an article bearing these words as a title, but my usual markets rejected it so I gave it to our pastor for sermon material. Next time Trinity Lutheran Messenger appeared, I found my article inside. This was the only time I ever had anything published without having submitted it!

But no one can teach anyone how to spell or pronounce words. As I keep telling new readers, the rules we learned in grade school are full of holes.

Eons ago, we were taught to spell according to pronunciation, and to pronounce according to spelling! In words such as "battle", "bottle", and "little", for example, the consonant (t) that follows the vowels (a, i, and o) is doubled, and the vowels are pronounced with the short, or soft sound. In words such as "bat", "bite", and "wrote", the consonant (t) remains single, and the vowels take the long sound. But how do we pronounce "got", "tot", and "model"?

Everyone is familiar with "i before e except after c", but how do we spell or pronounce "height", "weight", and "weird"? Again, as in so many areas of learning, the best solution is to MEMORIZE.

So why have I continued to write about these many facets and nuances of our Mother Tongue? Originally, because I was assigned the task while writing Nip and Tucks. But also because the preservation of what is still praiseworthy is dear to my heart. And because we are judged by the way we use words, and respect for good usage bespeaks respect for the self.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Aileen Lorberg is an author, turned columnist for the Southeast Missourian.