104.5 THE ZONE NEEDS TO AVOID ASPECTS OF GRAMMAR
For myself it is quite apparent that Tennessee’s education system
is totally clueless when it comes to basic grammar instruction. No teacher in the state has ever instructed a student about short vowels. Only long vowels exists. That helps to explain how when I was grading TCAP essays years ago that the simple two-letter word "on" was often spelled "own." That's how Tennessee-grown adults speak.
So, when Tennessee born and raised Chad Withrow delved into a grammar area during midweek I knew he was headed for trouble. He didn't let me down. The eternal sophomore with the annoying and never-ending spiel addressed how the Tennessee city of Milan is pronounced differently here than it is in its namesake city in Italy. Of course it is. The vowel "i" in "Milan" is going to be long in Tennessee whether it is supposed to be or not. Worse, he mispronounced the word "Italian" in pointing out the Milan disparity. This particular mispronunciation of the word "Italian" or "Italy" is so common a mistake you can usually find it in top ten lists pertaining to such matters. In fact, "ahy-tal-yuh n" is heard primarily from uneducated
speakers and many Italians find such a pronunciation offensive.
Withrow's sidekick, Paul Kuharsky, who suffers from delusions of adequacy, made some sort of comment about his proficiency in such matters, completely missing the "Italian" slip-up, all of which added up to a classic show of inefficiency. It's true, incompetent people do not know they are incompetent.