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New words appear all the time which is why we get that annual story about what new words have made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. New things happen and new words are required to describe them.
Similarly, older words constantly change in pronunciation and meaning too. Why else do you think when (if) you read old poetry that the words don't seem to rhyme exactly even though they almost do and are meant to? In many cases, they did in fact used to rhyme but the pronunciations have changed. Linguistics is very interesting in this way.
I have noticed a little trend lately about the pronunciation of Nuclear which seems to be changing in an unusual way.
Bush famously couldn't pronounce the word correctly and always said "Niuk-u-lar". Since then I have heard it pronounced that way many times on Fox (Faux) News. It seems to have caught on and become used by a lot of people.
So the reason for a change in the pronunciation of this word instead of normal factors like time and distance could simply be that a foaming-at-the-mouth rightwing news network wanted to cover the linguistic deficiencies of a former President.
I can't think of an instance where something like that has happened before.
