How to Pronounce “Tour”

The pronunciation of the word “tour” has been a sore subject for me. While growing up I always pronounced it like “too-er”, but my wife has always insisted that it should be pronounced like “tore”.

It finally bothered me enough that I looked it up. My brief research has led me to several sites that advocate for the “too-er” pronunciation:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tour

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:en-us-tour.ogg

Best of all, here’s the theme song from Gilligan’s Island – remember their “three hour tour”?:

Gilligan’s Island Intro

I found several different versions of the intro being sung by several different groups. It seems that if you pronounce “sure” like “shore”, you’re going to rhyme “shore” with “tour”. But if you pronounce “sure” like “shoo-er”, you’ll rhyme that to “tour”. INTERESTING!

After asking this question to other people who live in York County, I’ve been inundated by advocates of the “tore” pronunciation. Is there something in the Pennsylvania Dutch accent that is causing this?

How do you pronounce “tour”?

Tags: dutch, gilligan, grammar, language, pennsylvania, pronunciation, tour, york county

The Man in the Arena

From time to time, a speech from Theodore Roosevelt crosses my mind. In 1910 he spoke at the Sorbonne in France and the words of his speech have become well-known around the globe:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Many times in my life I have filled the role of the critic. It’s easy to point out the shortcomings of others because, as the Arbinger Institute tells us, we are then able to justify our own negativity toward that individual or group. This more common than you might think. The obvious example of this is in politics…”Barack Obama really screwed that up, etc. etc.”…but what about an example that is a bit closer to home?

There you lie, asleep in bed, with your wife by your side. Cries from your newborn shake you from your sleep, and looking at the clock you see that it is 3:30 in the morning. Who should go to see what is the matter?

It’s your wife’s turn…you wake up every night…she gets to sleep in while you go to work…she wasn’t very nice to you yesterday…come to think of it, she really dropped the ball when she forgot to take your other child to tee-ball practice. She should have to get up! And there you lie, pretending to sleep until your wife gets out of bed.

We justify our own negative traits by criticizing others. But as Roosevelt so eloquently pointed out, there is no honor in being the critic. It is he – or she – who is actually in the arena, marred by the metaphorical dust and sweat and blood, who deserves the honor. Yet so often it is that same individual who is too busy to seek any honor.

Perhaps it’s too late to consider it a New Year’s Resolution, but I am determined to lose myself in the arena. I refuse to be a critic any longer.

Reflecting on Super Bowl XLVI

Before I talk about last night’s championship game, I’d like to remind you of a few things I said this year.

From Early Season NFL Thoughts on September 19, 2011:

New England and Green Bay are for real, and they are my Super Bowl favorites.

Hey, one out of two ain’t bad. And Green Bay was right there. So close.

From NFL Conference Dominance on December 21, 2011:

The balance of power is shifting once again, so it shouldn’t surprise anybody to see a big streak of NFC Super Bowl victories. My guess is that we’ll see the NFC winning more interconference games as well.

The NFC did win the inter-conference play battle, and then the won the Super Bowl. That’s three championships in a row for the NFC…it’s clear that the balance of power has swung away from the AFC. It seems that even the NFC’s average teams will be able to beat the AFC’s best.

So let’s talk about last night’s game. Did anybody really want to win? Both teams appeared reluctant to deliver a knockout punch. The Giants had their opportunities early, staking a 9-0 lead, but the offense sputtered and Brady’s Patriots were able to recover to go up 10-9 at halftime. Then the Patriots had their opportunity to run away with the game, going ahead 17-9 in the third period. Even at 17-12 and 17-15 they had their chances to pull away but several crucial dropped passes gave the Giants just enough momentum to keep up. And then New York, pushing down-field with mere minutes to play, allowed Bill Belichick to outsmart them with that nifty “parting of the waters” defensive maneuver that gave the Patriots another chance to score with under a minute to play.

Even the final play of the game – the Hail Mary – failed to convince me that these guys wanted to win. Only one Patriot was able to put his hands on the ball…Gronkowski and Welker stood a few yards away from the ball, obviously anticipating a tip, but far enough away to not have a chance to catch the tipped ball. There had to be five Giants directly at the point where the pass was coming down.

It was, from my perspective, a truly disappointing game from start to finish. Any of the other NFC teams would have given us a much more entertaining match-up and game. And frankly, most of the other AFC playoff teams would have done the same. The Packers, Saints and 49′ers all made headlines consistently throughout the year for their stellar offenses and/or defenses. The Giants snuck into the playoffs…literally…by winning a few games down the stretch. The Patriots didn’t beat a team with a winning record until Denver in the playoffs…Baltimore and Pittsburgh would have provided a much better opponent. But instead it was a rematch of four years ago, and the game played out nearly identically. Mediocrity met mediocrity. Mistakes. Curious playcalling. And, of course, one big play by a Giants receiver that Eli Manning will undoubtedly receive most of the credit for.

Super Bowl XLVI was yet another forgettable game played by forgettable teams with a forgettable result.

Here’s hoping that next year brings us something a bit better.