Other Crap

Coast Guard to use computerized buoys to boost security.

• I wonder why "buoy" is never listed as one of the most confusing words in our language to pronounce. While it is not really "mis"pronounced, since several alternatives are acceptable, I have actually heard people corrected for pronouncing the word correctly as "boy"! People have forgotten that "boy" and "bwoy" were the original English pronunciations. According to the OED, those are still the only two correct pronunciations in Britspeak. American dictionaries now list "BOO-ee" as the most common American usage. It's a strange one, too, because Americans usually pronounce "buoyant" in the traditional way as "BOY-ent", but have often taken it upon themselves to alter "buoy" from "BOY" to "BOO-ee".
• My guess - just a guess - is that it is a case where spelling dictated pronunciation. The first known example of this word in writing occurred in 1466, and it was spelled "boy". This spelling was still common as late as 1677, although "buoy" first appeared in 1668. Other olden spellings included "boigh" and "bwoy". (Remember that there were no official standardized English spellings until the 1750s, so all were correct, and none were correct.) After the publication of Dr Johnson's dictionary in 1755, I can find no further examples of any other spelling but "buoy". The other three spellings made the pronunciation fairly evident, but when the modern spelling of "buoy" became the standard in the 18th century, it seems to have gotten most everybody (well, especially Americans) dancing in a different direction on the pronunciation.