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It is a little disconcerting to hear public officeholders mispronounce the word “nuclear.” And no, I am not going to name any names.
I remember a local news story some years back. A food product that was being sold in grocery stores--probably it was milk--was found to have aflatoxin in it. The TV news interviewed some public health official who no doubt thought he was soothing fears when he said that “alpha toxin” was not really any sort of a problem that the public ought to be worrying about.
More than once I have heard news reporters goof up their terminology after an aviation accident has occurred. They will quote a pilot who was a witness to the incident as having said “the engine stalled” when, more likely than not, what the pilot told the reporter was that “the aircraft stalled,” meaning the wing stalled.
Some magazine and newspaper editors are probably to blame for changing a knowledgeable writer’s use of the word “attitude” to “altitude” when the writer was describing the orientation of an aircraft or a spacecraft . It must make the writer cringe when he or she reads the finished publication and sees the editor’s ignorant change.
I think it was our own ZappperZ who pointed out that there is a distinction between particle accelerators and particle colliders, and that the words should not be used interchangeably.
So, can anybody name some commonly mispronounced or misused words in the arena of science or technology, as a public service to help us keep from making humiliating gaffes?
I remember a local news story some years back. A food product that was being sold in grocery stores--probably it was milk--was found to have aflatoxin in it. The TV news interviewed some public health official who no doubt thought he was soothing fears when he said that “alpha toxin” was not really any sort of a problem that the public ought to be worrying about.
More than once I have heard news reporters goof up their terminology after an aviation accident has occurred. They will quote a pilot who was a witness to the incident as having said “the engine stalled” when, more likely than not, what the pilot told the reporter was that “the aircraft stalled,” meaning the wing stalled.
Some magazine and newspaper editors are probably to blame for changing a knowledgeable writer’s use of the word “attitude” to “altitude” when the writer was describing the orientation of an aircraft or a spacecraft . It must make the writer cringe when he or she reads the finished publication and sees the editor’s ignorant change.
I think it was our own ZappperZ who pointed out that there is a distinction between particle accelerators and particle colliders, and that the words should not be used interchangeably.
So, can anybody name some commonly mispronounced or misused words in the arena of science or technology, as a public service to help us keep from making humiliating gaffes?
