September 4, 2008

Spelling lesson from Pogo

The Republican Party has been getting on my nerves a bit this week, blasting out more than a dozen press releases a day from the convention, none of which are relevant to my day job.

But last night's missive "Remarks by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin" was a delight, and not just because of her amiable anecdotes about taking Alaska's "good-ol' boys network*" down a peg or two.

In addressing energy independence, her prepared text stated that a McCain/Palin administration would "…build more new-clear plants…." Later, there's a reference to "new-clear weapons."

Thank you, thank you, to the speechwriter clever enough to spell "nuclear" phonetically. Apparently I am not the only person sick to death of hearing people talk about "nuke-ya-lur" power.

I suppose that means I'm also not the only one who remembers the Walt Kelly comic Pogo, in which the denizens of the Okefenokee Swamp knew how to pronounce "nuclear" because their creator spelled it "new clear."

This mnemonic of Mr. Kelly's was well-used in Ms. Palin's text -- except that someone really should have corrected the phonetic version before it went to the media.

Oh, well. I appreciated the chance to reminisce about good ol' Pogo.

* — For a discussion about whether "good-ol' boys network" is an apt phrase, see Bill Walsh's Blogslot.

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