The word on words

I’m a big fan of words. I mean, that’s kind of obvious; I’m about to write 800 of them right here. I do realize that I’m preparing to rip off William Safire’s beloved “On Language” columns, but I think of it as a loving (if only marginally successful) homage rather than a cheap mimicry. Besides, maybe ratcheting up the pretentious word content of The Daily Princetonian will help it become more comprehensible to some of our campus’ more literary publications.

My main objective today is to clear up quite a bit of linguistic confusion that I’ve noticed around campus. I’ll start with the incident of pronunciational controversy that sparked me to write this column. Discussing the upcoming Houseparties festivities with some friends, I found that several took issue with a phrase used by Terrace Club (of which I am a member) to advertise a French-culture-inspired theme for its semi-formal evening. The blurb read, “Last Tango in Terrace,” an obvious play on the infamous 1973 film “Last Tango in Paris.” Because of regional variations in dialect or perhaps an ignorance of cinematic history, however, others felt this simple pun made absolutely no sense. Several people proceeded to say the words “Paris” and “terrace” over and over again, as though to convince me that these words do not rhyme. Of course, they only succeeded in sounding ridiculous.

It’s not uncommon for two similar sounds to be distinct to speakers in one region but indistinguishable to someone from a neighboring region. This explains why I heard the same sound in “Paris” and “terrace” while others heard something like “Pah-ris” and “tair-race.” But as an aficionado of rhyme, I feel very strongly that one should be willing to sacrifice “perfect” pronunciation in favor of perfect rhyme. That’s why you pay special attention to how you pronounce “again” when it’s supposed to rhyme with “rain,” even though no one actually says it that way in modern English. Or why you can get away with rhyming “door hinge” and “orange” (doubly clever because “orange” supposedly has no rhymes). In any situation, you should always be willing to fudge pronunciation a little in order to really land the rhyme, because the aural effect is worth it. If you’re making a “Soulja Boy” presidential debate remix, though, “Stephanopoulos” and “preposterous” is pushing it.

Enough reasoning about rhyme. Another problematic pronunciation that I often hear on campus is “Forbesians.” The way most people say it, they accent the second syllable very heavily (“For-BEE-sians”). Not only is that an ugly word, but it also seems to refer to the inhabitants of a place called “Forbesia.” You wouldn’t call people from Wales “Wal-EE-sians,” would you? (Well of course not, you’d call them Welshmen, but that doesn’t make “Wal-EE-sians” any less silly.) I suppose it’s a small thing to get upset about, but really, “FORB-zee-uhns” is far more pleasing to the ear.

I’m willing to let that one slide, though, if I can raise some awareness about the problem that irritates me most. Please, right now, say aloud the name of the lake on the southern edge of campus where crew does its thing. If you accented the first syllable (“CAR-nuh-gee”), I hope that the ghost of Andrew Carnegie haunts you for the rest of your life — or better yet, that the zombie of Carnegie eats your brains. The lake is named after a man whose name is and always has been accented on the second syllable (“Car-NAY-gee”). Somewhere, someone who had never heard of the man or been to Scotland apparently started this awful trend, and it spread across the nation. It’s even made it all the way to Carnegie Hall (yes, that one is named after him too). Seriously, the man gave hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable and educational causes in America; the least we can do is say his name right.

So that’s the word on words, at least for the time being. I expect to hear these changes made within the next few weeks. Tell your friends. I know it probably won’t happen, but I hope my criticism of the language I hear has left you feeling enlightened rather than harassed.