Synchronicity and language

Today I had another instance of the uncanny and synchronous events related to language that occasionally happen to me.

I often read while listening to the radio. And often I've found that at the exact moment that my eye lands upon a particularly unusual word, I will also hear that word on the radio. 

Yes, I know what you're thinking. If I'm reading a newspaper article about some person who is currently featuring in the news, then it's very likely that I'll also hear the name of that person being discussed in a news bulletin on the radio. But I'm not including instances like that, which are, of course, unsurprising.

Today, for example, I was listening to a program called Common Knowledge on the ABC's Radio National. It was the end of the program, and the presenter was referring to the program as "CK". At that very moment he said "CK" my eyes happened to look down to a bunch of keys in a tray, and one of the keyrings was a fake Calvin Klein keyring, which consisted of the letters C and K. It was the exact same moment.

This often happens to me. I'll hear an unusual word or phrase at the exact same moment as I also see it. But the written and the audible versions of that word usually are totally unrelated, as outlined above.

What's going on here? Many people talk of the significance of coincidences. But I can't detect any useful patterns in these coincidences. What significance could the initials "CK" possibly have for me? It it a recommendation to approach someone with those initials? Or a warning to stay away from them?

If you have had any similar experiences with synchronous words or phrases, please let me know.

Mangled Aussie pronunciations

Has anyone else noticed how many Australians mispronounce the name of the American city of Los Angeles? When I mention this to most people they say that they've never noticed it before. But many Australians pronounce it as 'Loss AN-jel-eez', whereas most Americans pronounce it as 'Loss AN-jel-ess'. A similar thing happens with New Orleans, which Americans utter as 'Noo OR-lunz' while the Aussies say 'Nyoo Or-LEENZ'. I know that we pronounce the word 'new' differently, and I'm not suggesting that Australians should say 'noo'. It's the 'Orleans' part of the city's name that is markedly at odds with the standard American pronunciation when issuing from the mouths of many Australians, and which we could easily modify without breaking the rules of standard Australian pronunciation.

Yes, it's not particularly important and there are many more pressing concerns that I should be preoccupying myself with. But I figure that if you're going to Rome, then you might as well try to speak the local lingo with a Latin accent

On a similar topic, hardly anyone I speak with or write to has noticed how the 's' sound before a 't' in the mouths of many younger Australians has morphed into a 'sh' sound. So what I would pronounce as 'Australian' becomes 'Aushtralian' for these speakers. I know that it may well become standard Australian pronunciation in 50 years' time, but I cringe every time I hear it. And if I hear several consecutive words with the 'st' collection of consonants squashed together in this way – as in 'I'm a shtruggling Aushtralian shtudent' – then I want to hurl something at the radio or TV. More than a few sportspeople seem to be the arch offenders. Listen to Shane Warne next time he does a TV ad.

All these non-standard versions seem to follow rules. In this case, the rule appears to be: 'If an 's' precedes a 't', then pronounce the two letters as 'sht'. But, strangely, I don't think I've ever heard the word 'steadily' pronounced as 'shteadily'. I'm just trying to conjure up from my memory examples of words that contain the 'st' sound, and it seems that not all of them get the 'sht' treatment. I have no idea why, but perhaps an observant linguist could explain why only some words containing 'st' are changed in this way.

What amazes me about this phenomenon is that hardly anyone I know is aware of it. But if I capture a grab of audio and play it back to my buttonholed interlocutor, then they can instantly detect what I'm talking about. But before I pointed it out they were oblivious to it.