Judge John Hodgman - You Say Tomato, I Say Justice

Episode Date: April 21, 2011

We have a pronunciation problem. Matt brings the case against his friend Josh, who he argues pronounces a number of words incorrectly. Affectations, shibboleths, and regionalisms: we've got it all.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. This week, you say tomato, I say justice. Matt is our complainant. He brings the case against his good friend Josh, who he argues pronounces a number of words incorrectly. Matt says that some leniency in pronunciation is acceptable due to regional differences, but he maintains that for the following words, there is a standard pronunciation that lends itself to being understood by a broad range of people and that the way his friend Josh says these words is simply wrong. The words will be detailed in the case. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom. Oye, oye, welcome to the court of let's calling the whole thing off. Jesse, will you please swear in the complainant and the defendant? Please raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God or whatever? Yes, I do so swear. Yes. I do. Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that his books can consistently be found in the humor section? I do. I do.

Very well, Judge Hodgman. Good morning. How are you guys? Excellent. Thank you. Good morning, Jana. Yes. I believe the complainant is guys? Good morning. Thank you. Good morning, Yana. Yes. I believe the complainant is Matt. Is that correct? Yes. Matt, what is your complaint about

Josh? Well, Your Honor, Josh pronounces a number of words incorrectly, and I suspect he does it just to be recalcitrant. I think he knows deep inside the correct way to pronounce the words. Case closed. I seek for your honor to enjoin him to join the rest of educated society in pronouncing. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't understand a word you said. Do you have some kind of crazy accent or something?

No. Could you? No. Oh, no. Oh, no. Well. Oh, yeah. He was a big fella.

Why don't you go ahead and try that again? I grew up in northern Wisconsin. However, I'm an Oregonian at heart. An Oregonian. Okay. Right. Oregonian. An Oregonian, I believe, is what we say.

Okay. You say that your friend Josh says words wrong, right? He does. Okay. Left and right. What words does he say wrong, specifically specifically that really get under your skine? Okay, specifically, I have a list. He says often incorrectly.

He pronounces it with a T. He says Boise incorrectly. He pronounces it with a voiceless S sound. He says drawer wrong. He says what? Drawer. What? A drawer.

A drawer? Is that what you mean to say? Yeah, that is how he says it. Oh, yeah. Okay. Serious dude. Uh-huh. He says roof incorrectly.

What? Roof. What? A roof on top of a house. A roof. You're not making me confident about my case, Your Honor. I think he's talking about a dog that's stranded on top of a house. I think you mean...

And it's going ruff ruff. Oh, yeah. You know, that's what I said. I think you mean to say confidant about your case. Josh, how do you respond? Let me just, I'm just asking you these questions just to get a sense of what your friend is talking about here, because it's hard for me to understand him at all.

Sure, I'll translate. The word spelled O-F-T-E-N is pronounced? I pronounce it often. I'm not asking you how frequently you pronounce it, sir. Okay. The word D-R-A-W-E-R is pronounced? Drawer. Okay. The word R-O-O-F is pronounced? Roof. And your friend Matt is from, he is originally from Wisconsin and is now living in Oregon or Oregon, depending on where you're from? That is correct. Okay, and you are from where? I, myself, am from Boise. And you pronounce that Boise?

That is correct. And Matt, how should he pronounce the name of his own hometown? Boise, with a voiced Z sound. So he's pronouncing the name of his own hometown? Boise, with a voiced Z sound. So he's pronouncing the name of his own hometown incorrectly? Correct. I got to tell you, it takes a lot of bolus to tell a guy that he's pronouncing his name of his hometown incorrectly. As a San Francisco native, I can tell you that it's a relatively common problem. It sure takes a lot of bolus to tell a guy that he's pronouncing the name of his own hometown incorrectly. Do you know what I'm talking about? Bolus? I'm unfamiliar with the term. Okay. It means that you have a huge ball of unshewed food in your mouth. And it takes a lot

of noyve to talk with your mouth full of shit like that. Because that's crazy. Why can't he pronounce the name of his own town the way he wants to? Well, your honor corrected me when I said Oregon. You corrected me with Oregon. I was just fooling around. Are you just fooling around, sir? No. You look at people from Missouri and they all say Missouri.

I try to look at people from Missouri from time to time, sure. Would you agree with him that they're correct in pronouncing it Missouri? Sure. You would? What about people in Myanmar? They say Myanmar and we pronounce it Burma. Well, that's a good point, but we're wrong. Are we? What is your concern about your friend exactly? Are you concerned that he's looking dumb? Well, yeah, in a way. For example, with often, I was always raised to believe that

pronouncing the T is kind of a shibboleth of the uneducated. I'm sorry, a what? A shibboleth. What's that? A red flag, something that indicates that someone's from a certain class or a certain... Oh, you mean a sibbolay. Oh, maybe. A sibilet or shibboleth.

Do you know the origin of that term, actually? I believe, yeah. Can you tell it to me? It's something in the Old Testament. They would make them say that word. Book of Judges. Book of Judges. Perfect.

Judges 12. They would make them pronounce that word, and if they said it a certain way, they'd be able to tell if they were a foreigner or... The Gileadites had defeated the Ephraimites. The refugees from that battle, the Ephraimites, were trying to get home. The Gileadites were trying to figure out which one of the people trying to cross the river were Ephraimites, their enemies, or Gileadites, their friends. And they knew that the Ephraimites could not pronounce the Hebrew word shibboleth, as we pronounce it more or less today, though there's a lot of debate over how it was actually pronounced in biblical times. And therefore, they would ask

the shibboleth, meaning an ear of corn, a river stream, depending on what Internet source you're using. And the Ephraimites could not say Shibboleth. They could only say Sibboleth. So they would ask an Ephraimite to say, you know, that word. And if they said Sibboleth, they would kill them. And so 42,000 Ephraimites were killed for pronouncing that word, quote unquote, incorrectly, according to the Gileadites. Is that the kind of bloody legacy you want to attach yourself to? Do you want to murder your friend?

No. I'd like your honor to enjoin him to say the word correctly. Just say correctly. Correctly. Yeah, good. That sounds right to me. Now, I'm just pointing out that it's a bloody legacy, expecting people to pronounce a word the way you expect it to be pronounced. And I want you to think about that. Do you have some evidence that you want to present to me, Matt? Sure.

With respect to the word often, I would submit the word soften. We don't pronounce a T in soften. Or in glisten. Often historically hasn't been pronounced with a T. What you just said was not true. It isn't? No. Why do you think it was spelled that way? Of course it was pronounced often. It was until the Middle Ages. Was it? Mm-hmm. And then

over time, its pronunciation softened too often. But then, once people started getting literate in the 16th and 17th centuries and seeing it spelled and trying to prove that they knew how to read, they would suddenly retroactively pronounce it the correct way, but looked like dummies to the people who had been pronouncing it correctly as often for

100 or more years. So often became an affectation or an affectation to prove that you knew how the word was spelled, when in fact it had not been pronounced with that t for for many many years and that is why it became as you say a shibboleth or a linguistic red flag for a certain class of people that you would call dummies trying to look good or maybe you wouldn't call them maybe you are relying on another source that you may have entered in evidence is that correct i did i submitted I submitted a picture, an entry from H.W. Fowler's Modern English Usage. Right, Modern English Usage, which we're talking by English, we mean British English because it was published in the UK,

and modern we mean circa 1926. Right. Okay. He basically defined the King's English, which is another book of his. Because he was the king, I presume? No, he just represented the king. Oh, no, he was just a guy with a lot of ideas. Okay, that's fine.

I understand now. And now you have a picture of his advice regarding the word often. Correct, where he clearly takes a side. And I'm looking at it now. Would you mind reading it for me, please? I'd be happy to. Thank you. You got to wind up your

electrograph there i should have this ready i apologize no no that's okay no i understand are you putting it on an overhead projector and the fan is cooling it currently right okay i got it so often is the entry pronounced often or often no who says open i'm sorry. Go on. Go on. I should point out that we do say oafen in San Francisco. Shut up, Frisco. The sounding of the T, which, as the Oxford English Dictionary says, is not recognized by the dictionaries, is practiced by two oddly consorted classes. The academic speakers who affect a more precise enunciation than their neighbors and insist on devil and picture instead of devil and picture. And the uneasy half-literates who like to prove that they can spell by calling our and medicine howr and medicine instead of our and medicine.

Uneasy half-literates. Right. Josh, that's you. That's what he's talking about. You, an uneasy half-literate. That's harsh. How do you respond to this attack? Well, as far as often versus often, I do subscribe to the form often.

Often, I don't know, it just, it sounds like, you know, I'm a gangster trying to kill somebody all of a sudden when I say, you know, I'm often. It's a fairly tortured defense, I have to tell you. Okay. Because in Matt's defense here, often is often heard. It is a fairly common pronunciation. And I think that to suggest that it's unusual would not, that strains credulity. How do you say soften? Do you say soften or soften? I think I actually do say soften. Oh, you don't. Oh. You know, my next question was going to be, are you just trying to drive your friend crazy? And now I'll extend that.

Are you trying to drive us both crazy? Quite possibly. However, in my defense, I would argue that the fourth letter of softened would be a T. And a third letter of often would also be a T. Not only would it be, it will be. What happened to the T? Where's the T love? It got softened out. How did you learn to pronounce often, often? I think I've always just said often. Now, people in what I call Boise, Idaho, what you call Boise, Idaho, call Boise, Idaho, Boise, Idaho.

Is that not correct? That is correct. And if people come into your town and they start saying, could you direct me to the Boise Public Library? Do you murder them like Ephraimites? Yeah, I would instantly know that they're not from Boise. Right, that's a shibboleth announcing that they are outsiders, right? Yep. And do you murder them?

You know, it depends. I ask them to stay soft and often. Right. Are you constantly offening outsiders who say Boise? Yeah, yeah, they get good offening. I see. Do people in your family say often the way people in your family say Boise?

Is it a regionalism, would you say? You know, I don't know about my siblings or my parents. That's a very sad story. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I'm just surrounded by people that say, you know, I don't know about my siblings or my parents. That's a very sad story. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I'm just surrounded by people that say, you know, often, and then when Matt comes along, that's when it pops out. Has Josh always said often? You guys have known each other for a long time, right? Yeah.

Describe the nature of your relationship. We met in a Russian class. Okay, in high school? No, in college, I'm sorry. Oh, in college, okay. And where did you go to college? Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. In Utah.

Okay. And was he pronouncing words funny then? He was. So as long as you have known him. Right. Correct. And yet you remain friends and worked at the same bank together. Uh-huh.

You ever plan a heist? Yes. Ever plan to rob your own bank? We never carried it out, though. No, no, no, no. I understand. I'm just... It would have been perfect. I just no, no, no. I understand. I'm just... It would have been perfect.

I just... Yeah, that's what I figured. It was just a side question I often ask people when they work at banks. It's a fair question. Yeah. And so there is no clear evidence of this being an affectation that he picked up somewhere else. It could be that it's just how it's said in Boise.

That's possible. Well, and... Why are you concerned that he's saying this stuff? Does it just get under your skin, or are you concerned on his behalf? Well, it's sort of a Brutus moment for me because moving to Utah, I discovered that, you know, I was under the impression that everybody pronounced things pretty regularly or uniformly. The right way, the way they do in Wisconsin. Right, and Oregon. And moving to Utah, I'd hear university professors and other people, you know, say these shibboleths, if you will, that, you know, are always associated with the

working classes. And, you know, to hear Josh say it is that much more painful. Whoa. Wait a minute. Are you saying that in Utah, university professors are talking like the working classes? Uh-huh. That's exactly what I'm saying. Oh my gosh. It's upsetting. Josh. Yes, Your Honor. Are you one of these unwashed, uneasy, half-literate working class people? You know, I think I might be considered a Gentile in that matter, possibly. I'm not even sure how that relates to it, but okay. What do you think about Matt saying that you talk like a dum-dum? You know, I would, I mean, historically speaking, often would actually be considered the educated form of pronunciation.

Okay, I've already explained to you that's not true, but that's okay. That's in fact the opposite of what I said. There is a legitimate reason for people to have thought that, for a snobbishness to rise up around the pronunciation of that word because it was generally accepted that it was pronounced often, but people who were just becoming literate would see it and would overcompensatorily pronounce the T often. And thus it became a symbol of what Matt would describe as working-class dum-dumism. I see.

I don't know that it still has that stigma attached to it. But there there is that historical stigma attached to it. And I could make the argument that Matt is trying to make you aware of that. But I could also hear the argument that Matt's just being kind of a snob. Josh, are you just you've been accused of saying these things wrong, even though you know, it bothers Matt in order to bother Matt. Is that true? Saying these things wrong, even though you know it bothers Matt, in order to bother Matt. Is that true? I wouldn't go that far. I mean, as far as often, you know, if we were to drive a wedge between our friendship, I would be more than happy to accommodate.

Oh, the wedges drove. Believe me. It's up to me now to cleave it together again. Matt, what do you want out of this judgment? Well, barring him actually using often rather than often, I would at least wish that he would admit that his usage is substandard. Okay. And Josh? Well, if you rule in my favor, I would like to have a jawar stricken from history and eternity.

I'm sorry, what? Dwar. Oh, wait. Yeah. Still, I didn't understand. Before I make my judgment, Matt, will you just pronounce the word D-R-A-W-E-R? There are two words spelled that way. One is a drar, someone that draws.

And the other is a dwar, is in a chest of drawers. And would you pronounce the word that's spelled M-E-D-I-C-I-N-E? I would say medicine. You dummy. I'll be back in a moment with my decision. Please rise as Judge Johnodgman exits the courtroom matt i have a question for you yes are you just being a dick um yeah josh how do you feel about being uh painted as a lower class individual. It does bother me every time he says war, and I totally call him on it each time.

But yeah, no, it would be nice to have a final say as to what should be pronounced, or which words should be pronunciated in what manner. Okay, you know what, guys? I gotta, Jesse, thank you. I just gotta burst back in here because I can't listen to that. Boise country boys, terrible Skype connection any longer.

It's just that is pure country right there, what you've got going on in your Skype connection, my friend. It's all we got out here. All right. But listen, I've been thinking a lot about this. First of all, you presented to me this evidence, Matt, from Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Right. That is a book Modern English Usage. Right. That is a book of English usage, not grammar. And there are those who say that grammar is the rules of language

and usage is how we go about breaking those rules every day that we speak. And there are those who say the opposite. But the point is, Fowler is making this all up. He is making it up from a historical point of view, from a class point of view, and especially as it pertains to pronunciation from a regional point of view. If there were no regional pronunciations, there would be no accents, and there are obviously accents. Matt, you are living proof of it, and don't deny it. Don't go, oh, no, again, because it's true. Everyone who talks in the craziest accent they have

thinks that they're talking the correct way And that's obviously not true There are obviously different ways of pronouncing things When it comes to Boise Which I will say is Boise because I'm not from there You have to give the edge to the person who was born there I would not want you to say That it's pronounced Worcester, Massachusetts When it is obviously pronounced

Worcester, Harvard Yard Now I never bothered much with this issue Of often I never thought a whole lot about it until you brought it up. And it is absolutely loaded with class connotations, as we said. And Fowler's argument that you should not pronounce it with the T because it makes you look pretentious may have carried some weight in 1926. But Fowler's argument that the pronunciation with the T does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary is not true anymore. In fact, it is appearing in the Oxford English

Dictionary right in front of my eyes. And Matt, if you were to go up to the Oxford English Dictionary in the photograph of your bookshelf that you provided for me as evidence where you had stuck one copy of my book in amongst the others in an attempt to bribe me into coming over to your case, I think you would see that it is also given as an alternate pronunciation there. These things, these thibboleth among educated people to hunt out the dummies change over time. And I think the best example is nuclear. And we all know it's pronounced nuclear as a nuclear power, a word that is very tragically in the news all the time these days, and not just the Boise City news. Now, liberals sniffed and chuckled and guffawed privately into their, you know, French cufflinks

every time our last president said nuclear, because that is a traditional signifier of dum-dumism. And indeed, sniffing and laughing and chuckling into one's cufflinks was pretty much John Kerry's whole campaign strategy. But when educated people tell you how to say a word, George W. Bush laughs and wins a second term. When the president says a word in a certain way, it's undeniably in the mainstream. And while you and I might lament this, a subtle shift has changed in the language. Nuclear is a little bit more of what it is, a legitimate, if somewhat unfortunate, regionalism, and a signifier of place. And harping on the pronunciation of nuclear itself becomes a shibboleth, a signifier of what I call creeping ash-holism. Josh's pronunciations and your choices of criticism are all part of the little way we negotiate with language every day.

We make little decisions about not only what to say, but how to say it every day in order to fit in in our job at the bank, or to announce that we don't fit in in our job at the bank, in order to present a version of ourselves as we want to appear, or to proudly announce who we are and where we come from, or just to drive your friend crazy. This is the delight of language. These decisions are often fraught with all kinds of meaning, but that's what makes a book like Fowler's Book of Modern Usage circa 1926 so much fun. Fowler is a delightful read insofar as he is incredibly opinionated, which is to say it is all his opinion. That's all we have. We do not say medicine because we are in a different time and in a different place. Now, I am willing to accept your opinion as fact, Matt, so long as you, like Fowler, write a big, long, insane book on it.

Then you have put in the effort. Otherwise, if you're just picking and choosing certain words that bug you that your friend says, you're just being a pedant and a bully, the people of gilead let us end this before there are 42 000 dead i rule in the favor of josh this is the sound of a gavel judge john hodgman rules that is all please rise as judge john hodgman exits the courtroom matt how do you feel about the ruling? Well, a little disenchanted, but I think it was reasonable. I studied linguistics, and there's a linguistics creed that we're supposed to accept everybody and their dialects. And he touched me. I should follow what I said. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm back. Hang on a second. At Brigham Young University, you studied linguistics. Correct. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm back. Hang on a second. At Brigham Young University, you studied linguistics. Correct. And there is a creed that says you have to accept everyone's dialect.

Yeah. And you call me up to get angry about the way your friend pronounces his own hometown when instead of drawer, you say drawer. You know, it's not so much a creed, maybe a guideline. That's the pot calling the kettle black. But I was touched by your grace's ruling. I'm going to take it to heart. I think it comes down to this. Josh, I think you should say often.

I think you should stop saying often because I do think that that's more mainstream. And I'd sentence you to that if I could. Why can't you? But what's more important, because you lost, okay? And the reality is it's more important to me to sentence you to say drawer in whatever way that makes sense to you, but at least is somehow intelligible to other humans. Like that's the more important thing here. When Josh says often, he may look like a big, hulking, working class dum-dum with a tooth missing,

which is to say a graduate of Brigham Young University. I went to Yale. But at least people know what he's talking about. When you say, or whatever it is, to indicate the Pugliotti thing on the bureau or your nightstand, people are going to get confused, even in Oregon. Well, I rely on context, or I avoid the word altogether. You rely on context. Who are you, Claude Levy Strauss? Are you amidst people who don't speak your language?

Just say drawer, or something that people can understand. Judge Hodgman, with all due respect, I think podcast listeners are sick and tired of allusions to Claude Levy Strauss. We're going to have to edit that out. I understand. Okay. Thank you, gentlemen, very much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Thank you.

You guys are a delight. Good luck in all your future endeavors. Thank you. Okay. Later, guys. We're now retired in the chambers of Judge John Hodgman. I'm still bailiff Jesse Thorne, Judge Hodgman. I hope you're enjoying that brandy snifter.

Yeah, and I'm technically still a judge. Yes, thank you. I'd like to put some brandy in this snifter, though. I'll tell you, it just doesn't taste the same without it. I know. Well, I thought you would just appreciate the fine stemware. I do. Barware? Stemware

is fine. Glassware, barware, it's good, but it all gets, the stems get stuck in your teeth. That's my feeling. Okay. Let's do some docket clearing here. These are matters of semantics. Unlike the typical weighty matters discussed on this program. Here's a note from Chad. I already don't like it. If you would permit me, I will start with a question that will reveal the source of my angst. Today, as I write this, is Wednesday. And since today is Wednesday, an appropriate question would be,

how many days are there until next Saturday? Okay, wait a minute. That is not an appropriate question. No one would ever ask that question on a Wednesday. If you know that it's Wednesday, you know exactly when next Saturday is. The only reason you would ask that question would be if you had been transported in time or hit on the head and become amnesiac, in which case you would ask the question, what day is today? That's the one that matters.

Chad claims that most people on the planet would answer that question with 10 days, would answer that question with 10 days. But he thinks that the correct answer is three days because he thinks logic trumps common usage. So... Oh, this is very simple. Weeks in the United States begin on a Sunday and end on a Saturday. In Europe, it's more typically Monday through Sunday. But we are in the United States.

Therefore, next Saturday is the Saturday that occurs next week. This Saturday is the Saturday that occurs in this week. That is perfectly logical. It has nothing to do with usage. Next Saturday belongs to next week. This Saturday belongs to this week. And that applies equally to all seven days. Chad, I knew it when I heard your name. You're wrong. Okay, here's a question from Tom. He says, my nephew Zachary and I had a spirited discussion regarding his exercise routine, and we'd like to have some resolution to it. Zachary is a law student at Fordham University where he keeps fit by jogging in Central Park. Zachary is self-conscious about his performance,

however, and he said he wants to raise the level of his exercise so that he could in good conscience claim that he was out for a run. Please don't tell me he's going to try to do an Ironman. Is this another Ironman? I promise there will be no more quashing of dreams, athletic dreams on this week's Judge John Hodgson. i can't even make that promise i promise you there'll be four more quashing of dreams three of which will be athletic dreams why do you think i do this um all right what's zachary's problem he's concerned that what he does is jogging and it would be rude to claim or incorrect to claim that he is out for a run

tom says that running and jogging are categorical definitions determined by the participant's intent. Jogging performed for its own sake, running undertaken to satisfy the claims of some external agency, and thus unless he were running from some kind of creature or training for some kind of race, it would be impossible for Zachary to claim that he is running rather than jogging. So here's the question. Is the difference between running and jogging dependent upon rate or intent? Well, first of all, we've got a lot of tweets, a lot of message board posts from runners who did not like my ruling in the Ironman triathlon case. They're mad at me because these runners feel that their particular weird addictive hobby is more empirically more important than any specific marriage or family that they know nothing about.

But I am here to say I am not against running. I'm all for it. I'm all for triathlons. I'm all for everything. I am for balancing your addictive hobbies with the demands of being a spouse and a father. And I would feel that way even if the person in question was addicted to cosplay. And I am certainly, definitely for keeping one's promises. I am in fact so in favor of running that I often do it myself on a treadmill like an animal at the Y.

And here's how I know what I'm doing is running as opposed to jogging. Because the treadmill at the Park Slope Y says two miles per hour is walking, four miles per hour is jogging, six miles per hour is running. That's arbitrary, but then again, what isn't? There is absolutely a difference between jogging and running, and it's about two miles per hour. I have a question, Judge Hodgman. I have an answer. They let animals into your Y?

Yes. You have to provide treadmills for people's dogs. These matters thus settled. Thank you kindly, Judge Hodgman. Thank you very much for your kind attention. That is all. The Judge John Hodgman Podcast is a production of MaximumFun.org.

Our special thanks to all of the folks who donate to support this show and all of our shows at MaximumFun.org slash donate. The show is produced by Julia Smith and me, Jesse Thorne, and edited by Matt Gourley. His great podcast, by the way,

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