So, here's some whining...

I was thinking that one thing I could do with this blog is complain about stupid language usage, especially as it is now time to grade final papers...and since, in general, I like to complain about such things...

So, this afternoon I was watching a how-to-play-acoustic-bass video, trying not to bleed too heavily whilst holding down those big-as-your-arm strings, and I hear the guy say something about the HEIGHTH of the string above the fingerboard...and I'm thinking, please oh please don't say heighth, because it isn't really a word, and just encourages people to say it wrong, grumblegrumblegrumble... A little later, just to make myself feel better/smart/holier-than-him, I looked it up on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, where you can also hear pronunciations of the words. I noticed there were 2 little speaker icons, meaning 2 pronunciations to be heard, and was ever so depressed to hear the second of the two sound like something entirely too close to HEIGHTH. This is not OK. Is this an example of the language officially changing because of common, yet WRONG, usage? Or has that always (whatever that means) been an acceptable variant? Oh dear, I so hope not. My world has been shaken. Not stirred.