I’ll take potent potables for $100 please, Art.
Back when I was a kid and Art James used to host the game show Jeopardy, I remember they used to have the potent potables category where they would describe an alcoholic drink and you would have to identify the drink, in the form of a question.
What is a martini, Art?
The reason I bring this up is that, excepting Art James and Alex Trebek, I’ve known people who have had trouble with the pronunciation of the word potable. The second letter of the word is pronounced with an O sound, and over the years, I’ve mostly heard it pronounced the same way you would pronounce the word pot (like the thing you put on the stove to apply heat to food, or the stuff they roll up in zig-zag papers and...well, never mind). I used to work for a company that made equipment for water treatment and some of our equipment made water drinkable. When I first started working for the company, and we would have meetings about potable water equipment, everyone mispronounced the word, including the Sales Manager who always chaired the meetings, and when it came my turn to talk, I pronounced it correctly. My obvious superior knowledge of the language failed to change anyone’s mind and by the end of my tenure with the company, I remember once articulating the word and using their pronunciation. By the way, the word comes from two Latin words, potare: to drink, akin to bibere: also to drink. But, you probably already knew that. I'm sure there are groups of you right now who are discussing the proper conjugation of these verbs.
I suspect that right now others of you are saying, “Big freaking woop, Jimbo. What does it really matter? Why don’t you get a life?”
Well, yesterday I was at a job interview and having researched the company’s product line on their website and seen the name of a former competitor of the company for which I worked referenced, I used their name several times. I told the guy who was interviewing me how they were a competitor and how we used to do the job and how they did it. About the third time I mentioned their name, he said they were a sister company of his and he advised me the correct pronunciation of their name. Oops! I had gotten my pronunciation from the same sales manager who couldn’t pronounce potable.
The point is that even though my former employer was populated by people who couldn’t correctly pronounce the word, we were able to deliver a quality product that did what it was supposed to do. Even though I couldn’t correctly pronounce the name of my former competitor, I think I convinced the guy that was interviewing me yesterday that I knew my stuff. Sometimes, I guess, it is more important to know what you are talking about than pronouncing the words correctly.
However, in Jimbo’s world, we try to do both, whenever we can.
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