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Onion: Special Boy with Freakishly Large Brain Wins Spelling Bee

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gmsc5/08/2009 7:33:51 pm PDT

re: #86 JacksonTn

SoS … vacuum … I can never remember how to spell it … why two “u” …

/I looked on the list …

Originally, it was pronounced “vak-you-um”, so the 2 Us made sense. When this type of cleaner began to be marketed to housewives in the ’50s, the pronunciation was changed to make it easier to say and sell.