More Pronunciation-caused Woes

Effective Usage

Ah, the Midwest.  It’s a lovely place to live.  The change of seasons, the nearly universal love of football, the vague pronunciation of certain vowel sounds which causes regular misuse of certain word pairs.  Marvelous.

What’s that?  That last one seems a little off?  You’re right.  It’s not one of the marvelous things about the Midwest.  It’s one of the things about the Midwest that drives me a little crazy.  For one reason or another, we Midwesterners tend to mush up our short-a and short-e sounds into either a universal use of the short-e sound or an indistinguishable short-u sort of sound.

One of my favorite examples of this pronunciation problem is in how the Midwestern utterance of then and than confuses people to no end.  Of course, I recently did a column about then (reference to a point in time, most frequently used as an adverb) and than (a conjunction used for comparisons), so I’ll not rehash that here.

That beginning vowel sound also makes affect and effect a tough determination.  Affect is most often a verb: Sunny weather affects her mood positively.  On the other hand, effect is almost always a noun: Sunny weather has a positive effect on her mood.  If we all just pronounced effect with a long-e sound, I think this issue would clear right up.  If you’re looking for a trick for this one, though, my best suggestion is to think of affect as an action and remember that they both start with a.

Another terrific example is the subtle pronunciation difference between accept and except, a difference that in the Midwest is all but lost.  Of course, the words have almost opposite meanings and uses, so it’s important to make the distinction.  Accept is a verb meaning to take or receive; except is a conjunction or preposition used to exclude something.  My little trick for this pair is that except has an X in it, so you can think of it as crossing something out or excluding something. 

The a-for-action trick also works for accept and except, but I like the X trick better.  It makes me think of X-Men, which makes me think of Wolverine, which makes me think of Hugh Jackman, and Hugh Jackman makes me smile no matter how he pronounces vowels.