Yesterday with Casey, we started talking about how living abroad can somehow turn apologist liberals like ourselves into rabid patriots. This change occurs gradually as attacks on your nationality grow increasingly repetitive, hypocritical, and banal (pronounced buh-nahl. Thanks, Mom!).
You hear things like:
"In America, you are so racist. Now, go barter with that Algerian negro."
"You have problems with black people and we have problems with Eastern Europeans. Now, I don't hate Romanians, it's just that stealing is in their blood."
"In America, you like your pasta soft and you use ketchup as tomato sauce."
"Why do you call foreign people 'aliens'? What are we, from outer space?" ("Seriously?" I responded to this certain Quebecois)
Eventually, this gets so frustrating that you start responding in the same way.
Responses may include:
"Well, at least we don't generally risk hepatitis by using a public restroom."
"In America, I generally don't have to crouch on my knees to take a shower."
"In America, we're friendly."
This back-and-forth grows so tiresome that you end up arguing for things that you don't even believe in:
"Fuck yeah, WMDs!"
Or, as Casey shouted, "George Bush is awesome!"
I assured her that I never fell quite that far.
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goddammit
In the interest of full disclosure, you were actually using the word correctly before, too. Here's what I found in my Internet Research on the English Rules website:
"Here is my paraphrase of what the Usage Note in the American Heritage Dictionary has to say about the pronunciation of banal: There is little agreement and much confusion over the pronunciation of banal. Possible pronunciations include BAY-null (rhyming with anal), buh-NAL (rhyming with canal), and bun-ALL (the last syllable rhyming with doll). The note concludes with this diplomatic gesture: "Speakers can perhaps take comfort in knowing that any one of [these] pronunciations will have the support of a substantial minority and that none of them is incorrect. When several pronunciations of a word are widely used, there is really no right or wrong one." Still, I would avoid the first pronunciation, as it sounds too similar to "anal.""
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