[…]That accounts for Eisenhower’s mispronunciation of nuclear, back at a time when the word was a new addition to ordinary people’s vocabularies. And it’s why Homer Simpson says it as “nucular” even today. But it doesn’t explain why you still hear “nucular” from people like politicians, military people, and weapons specialists, most of whom obviously know better and have been reminded repeatedly what the correct pronunciation is. The interesting thing is that these people are perfectly capable of saying “nuclear families” or “nuclear medicine.” I once asked a weapons specialist at a federal agency about this, and he told me, “Oh, I only say ‘nucular’ when I’m talking about nukes.”
In the mouths of those people, “nucular” is a choice, not an inadvertent mistake — a thinko, not a typo. I’m not sure exactly what they have in mind by it. Maybe it appeals to them to refer to the weapons in what seems like a folksy and familiar way, or maybe it’s a question of asserting their authority — as if to say, “We’re the ones with our fingers on the button, and we’ll pronounce the word however we damn well please.”[…]
