Craig Claiborne, The greatest of all food writers, brought food criticism to a high point in his renowned New York Times column. His cookbooks were and still are masterpieces. Claiborne once said: "I despair of getting Americans to pronounce Vichysoisse properly.” He said that they though calling it “Vichy-swah” sounded more French. In fact – it is pronounced like it looks: Vichy-swaz. Ironically it is not French at all. It was an American concoction, based I suppose on the original leek and potato soup. But the point is: pronunciation didn’t matter. What Claiborne thought didn’t matter.
It’s a fact of life. My wife keeps telling me to “get over it.” One of my favourites is ”bruschetta.” The Italian pronunciation is brus-ketta, not as is our custom – brew-Shetta. Visiting in Austin Texas with my kids I asked the proprietor of one of that city’s great restaurants about the pronunciation. I had just been served by a wait-person who said, of course – brew-shetta. When I asked him how it should be pronounced he got it right. He also admitted that the common pronunciation, even if it was wrong, was in common use.
When I think about “Looking Ahead” I have to be careful not to groan over today's language. It’s kind of old-fashioned. You have to sound like “today”
so you mispronounce like everyone else does.
So just today I am lying on my bed watching Discovery channel. There is a wonderful documentary about the end of the age of the dinosaur. It is all about the cataclysmic and earth-changing explosion when a huge meteor stuck the earth in the Gulf of Mexico. The narrator, deep-voiced, sonorous, plenty of scientific gravitas said “it was the coup de grace.” He referred to the collision of the asteroid. He pronounced it ‘coo-de-graw.” He’s not alone. It’s a common mispronunciation, defended, in at least one case I know of, by someone who should know better. People get confused. Pate de foie gras is pronounced “graw.” Grace is pronounced “grass.” The phrase is “coo-de-grass.”
It simply doesn’t matter anymore. When a CBC news person talking about the recent horrible chemical spill in Hungary he referred to the leaking of toxic chemicals into nearby rivers and – are you ready – even the Danube. But he pronounced it “Da-noob” with the emphasis on the second syllable.
So does it matter? Can we look ahead to language distortions that pretend to be the evolution of language? Do we accuse the public of being completely “dumbed down?”
Maybe. But maybe it just doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter like young men not removing their peaked caps when they are in a restaurant, or staying seated on a crowded street car while a pregnant woman stands holding desperately on to a handhold. I was brought up in a world of grace. Part of it was that even if it didn’t really matter, it was good to treat language with some respect.
But maybe “getting it right” doesn’t matter any more.
Friday, November 26, 2010
DEMOCRACY IN ACTION?
This is one of several items that I have had to push to the back burner for personal health reasons, but even weeks after the event, the awful reality of it is pervasive. The issue has to do with the acquittal, on all but one charge, of a “suspected" terrorist. The word is in quotes because the public has decided that he is guilty and that his trial was just a formality. Democracy prevailed. The people who believe they have the best and fairest justice system in the world has been stunned by the reality: he is, by legal definition innocent until proved guilty. The burden of proof is not on the defendant
The Republicans are up in arms. Obama has broken out in a cold sweat. The American Justice system has “failed.” Yes failed – all because it did not render the verdict that would have been the only fair verdict: guilty on all counts. The Republicans of course, are in a tizzy because they warned Obama that civilian courts wouldn’t do what the military courts at Guantanamo would do: send the bastard to the chair! The response reminds me of hearing a policeman declare: “We seldom arrest anyone who is not guilty.” Presumption of innocence is merely an idea, to be set aside when it is obvious that the defendant is guilty – a decision made not by the classic blindfolded angel of justice, but by the all-knowing public. We shriek for blood with no less fervour than the fans at a bullfight.
Everyone knew this guy was guilty as hell, He killed Americans. Luckily for the Obama administration, they were able to sentence him to twenty years for the only charge they could grab him on: conspiracy. I’ll be damned if I can see the American justice in that. He was guilty. The military court would not have been squeamish about convicting him.
Of course he may be guilty. The verdict may have been a miscarriage of justice. It’s like the fighter’s manager declaring, after his boy was KOed: “We wuz robbed!”
The Washington Post in an article titled “Close call for Obama” writes this: “Republican lawmakers said the verdict should force the administration to abandon the civilian trials."I am disgusted at the total miscarriage of justice today in Manhattan's federal civilian court," said Rep. Peter T. King (N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. "This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration's decision to try al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts."
The lynch mob mentality is not dead. We want “justice” which in so many cases adds up to: “String ‘em up and to hell with formalities.”
I despair. If you believe in the system you cannot believe only in the part that assures the guilty are punished, but that a democracy, if it is any kind of democracy, cannot indulge in “show trials.” You know – where the candidate for execution is brought before a judge who has decided the case in advance.
There is one final sour note. It is one played often on TV shows where somehow the law never seems to be wrong. The examining police officer “knows” the suspect is guilty because he starts “lawyering up.” That’s the expression. It is disdainful of any attempt to have the suspect’s rights protected by law and legal counsel.
We either believe that justice is blind, or we return to the Star Chamber approach where the innocent is always guilty because the king wants him to be guilty.
I thought that was all gone. Sadly it is not.
The Republicans are up in arms. Obama has broken out in a cold sweat. The American Justice system has “failed.” Yes failed – all because it did not render the verdict that would have been the only fair verdict: guilty on all counts. The Republicans of course, are in a tizzy because they warned Obama that civilian courts wouldn’t do what the military courts at Guantanamo would do: send the bastard to the chair! The response reminds me of hearing a policeman declare: “We seldom arrest anyone who is not guilty.” Presumption of innocence is merely an idea, to be set aside when it is obvious that the defendant is guilty – a decision made not by the classic blindfolded angel of justice, but by the all-knowing public. We shriek for blood with no less fervour than the fans at a bullfight.
Everyone knew this guy was guilty as hell, He killed Americans. Luckily for the Obama administration, they were able to sentence him to twenty years for the only charge they could grab him on: conspiracy. I’ll be damned if I can see the American justice in that. He was guilty. The military court would not have been squeamish about convicting him.
Of course he may be guilty. The verdict may have been a miscarriage of justice. It’s like the fighter’s manager declaring, after his boy was KOed: “We wuz robbed!”
The Washington Post in an article titled “Close call for Obama” writes this: “Republican lawmakers said the verdict should force the administration to abandon the civilian trials."I am disgusted at the total miscarriage of justice today in Manhattan's federal civilian court," said Rep. Peter T. King (N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. "This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration's decision to try al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts."
The lynch mob mentality is not dead. We want “justice” which in so many cases adds up to: “String ‘em up and to hell with formalities.”
I despair. If you believe in the system you cannot believe only in the part that assures the guilty are punished, but that a democracy, if it is any kind of democracy, cannot indulge in “show trials.” You know – where the candidate for execution is brought before a judge who has decided the case in advance.
There is one final sour note. It is one played often on TV shows where somehow the law never seems to be wrong. The examining police officer “knows” the suspect is guilty because he starts “lawyering up.” That’s the expression. It is disdainful of any attempt to have the suspect’s rights protected by law and legal counsel.
We either believe that justice is blind, or we return to the Star Chamber approach where the innocent is always guilty because the king wants him to be guilty.
I thought that was all gone. Sadly it is not.
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