metathesis in technical terminology
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 1:40 pm
Metathesis is a great and well known driver of linguistic change.
I'm sure we've all heard "nucular" instead of "nuclear", but today I heard a medical doctor, a specialist in infectious diseases, no less, pronounce "omicron" as "omricon". (He said it more than once in an interview, so I'm not just making this up.)
Are technical terms, often based on non-English sources, more susceptible to such modification more "common" words, or am I just more sensitive to such changes?
I'm sure we've all heard "nucular" instead of "nuclear", but today I heard a medical doctor, a specialist in infectious diseases, no less, pronounce "omicron" as "omricon". (He said it more than once in an interview, so I'm not just making this up.)
Are technical terms, often based on non-English sources, more susceptible to such modification more "common" words, or am I just more sensitive to such changes?