It has been determined by a non-scientific study, conducted by yours truly, that everyone’s favorite television grandpa, Wilford Brimley, actually does pronounce “diabetes” correctly… with a long E. His awesome handlebar moustache, is the culprit.
Long held to be a pet peeve of millions, Wilford’s horrific butchering of a common medical condition, diabetes milletus, in his Liberty Medical commercials, is not really his fault. Regardless of which coast he’s from, or how old he is, he has no right to aggravate umpteen gazillions of television viewers with his diah-bee-tuss pronunciation.
I conducted an experiment to simulate what it must be like to speak through such a moustache. I’m clean-shaven, and not having the patience to grow out an impressive hairy upper lip like Mr. Brimley’s, I held my cat Vince up to my face and uttered the word “diabetes.”
Much to our surprise, the sound that came out was indeed diah-bee-tuss. I swear, I was saying diah-bee-teez, but the sound coming through the furriness of Vince’s abdomen, likely the same acoustic effects of Wilford Brimley’s moustache, warped and distorted my pronunciation exactly the same way. I was amazed.
I tried various other words and clauses, and found to my amazement, the following anomalies:
- “George W. Bush” sounds like “Incompetent idiot.”
- “Microsoft” sounds like “Shitty software.”
- “Nicole Richie” sounds like “Anorexia.”
on Dec 31st, 2007 at 3:11 pm
That is too funny!
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on Jan 21st, 2008 at 9:40 am
From Dictionary.com:
Pronunciation[dahy-uh-bee-tis, -teez]
From Merriam-Webster:
Pronunciation: \ˌdī-ə-ˈbē-tēz, -ˈbē-təs\
Either way is acceptable and correct, so you can imagine the level of intelligence that your post exudes.
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on Jan 21st, 2008 at 9:49 am
Clearly Mark, you have a highly developed sense of humor.
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on Jan 21st, 2008 at 12:41 pm
To add additional sample data to your study. I duplicated your test with Floyd and based on my scientific expertise and the fact that I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, my result corroborate your findings and I concur with your professional opinion.
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on Jan 21st, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Thanks for that, Sean. I’ll look forward to your article in the Journal of Mustache Acoustics and Linguistics next quarter.
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on Jan 22nd, 2008 at 2:24 am
hahahahaha yay for Mark completely missing the point hahahaha
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on Jul 31st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I feel sorry for Mark….
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on Jul 31st, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Oh yeah, great by the way…I was seriously searching for the correct way, but this is great. I really wanna know ’cause I just heard some chick on TV pronounce it like Wilford.
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