Gramer Girl here.

I'm Minyeon Fogarty and this week I have a quick and dirty tip about the word tumult.

An update about bowls in a china shop and a meaty middle about modifiers such as always

and never.

Let's start with the tumultuous pronunciation of tumult.

A few months ago I had a segment about what it means to read someone the Riot Act.

And I told you that the official name of the act starts with an act for preventing

tumult and riotous assemblies.

But recently an English teacher in Tehran named Marshall pointed out that I had mispronounced

tumult as tumult.

A tumult is a riot or uprising or just a loud disorderly crowd.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary we get tumult from a Latin word that meant

commotion, bustle, uproar, disorder or disturbance.

And Marian Webster notes that it may be related to a Sanskrit word for noisy.

I'm not sure why I mispronounced it as tumult instead of tumult, except that I'm not sure

I've ever heard anyone else say the word.

But I have heard the adjective form tumultuous as in it's been a tumultuous week.

So I was probably modeling the pronunciation a bit after the word I had heard.

So I wasn't exactly saying it that way either.

So I'm sorry for the error.

And now you too can remember that it's pronounced tumult.

Next in last week's show about animal idioms I mentioned the phrase a bowl in a china

...