It’s all Mitt Romney’s fault.
For years, I’ve been reading tales of how he tied his family’s dog (in a cage; he’s not totally evil) to the roof of the car when they went on vacation. When he lost the U.S. presidential election last November, I knew we’d heard the last of that poor pooch. The one on the roof.
“Well, it’s going to be boring without having old Seamus to make fun of,” I told my sister Roz.
“What did you just say?”
“Seamus. The Romney’s dog.” She was laughing so hard she had to put the phone down.
“You idiot. It’s pronounced “Shay-mus”.” Yes, I’d said “Sea-mus”.
I have a word problem. I read more than I talk, believe it or not, and I have bugaboo words that I can’t say out loud. It’s been a lifelong problem and I still remember the first word I stumbled over: pedestrian. As we drove in the car one day, I, a new and somewhat precocious reader, pointed to a traffic sign.
“Look. There’s a pedesteerian crossing,” I informed everyone, no doubt proud of my bigwordness. My sister started laughing. Same sister.
It’s been somewhat downhill from there. I can’t say “awry” out loud. The first time I said it, it came out “aw-ree”, and I got laughed at. Yup. Still Roz. To this day, I pause when I come to that word. There is a kit full of words I can’t spell without pausing (separate, committee, accommodate) but spell-check flips those and I move along. My brain doesn’t have a prounounce-check.
The coordinator for an organization I work with is a young woman named Siobhan. She finally starting signing letters to members with “pronounced Chiv-on” beneath her name, which I know people found quite helpful. I would like people to do this on kids’ nametags at preschool; my favourite youngster when Ari was there was Bob.
When Christopher, 21, was younger, he was reading books a few grades ahead. Testing his comprehension, his teacher asked him if he understood all the words.
“Sure,” he said. The teacher pointed to one. “Colone-y,” came the confident reply. Colony. He recently told me he said “sub-till” in his head for years. And what goes with subtle? Why, sub-till-tee, of course. It seems mispronunciations haunt you forever, like unfortunate haircuts. And older sisters.
When I worked for Consumer’s Distributing (late 70s, early 80s, Appleby, I know a bunch of you are going to ask), a woman came in and demanded I show her the oinks rings. I blinked. She raised her voice and repeated it. I blinked harder. Then a light went off, and I led her to the onyx rings.
I have a group of women friends, and we’re all writers. We mostly communicate by email, so I thought I’d make them confess. “I used to think “misled” was the past tense of “to misle”,” said one. “”Assuage; that U is not silent,”” fumed another. “I can’t say “rural”; I sound like Scooby Doo saying “ruh-roe”, full of extra Rs.”
We decided that “hegemony” is a hedgehog wedding, however you pronounce it. “Cache” and “chasm” got a vote. “Awry” was such a repeat offender I think it should just be discarded from the English language all together.
I bet Seamus would have answered to anything if he was being rescued off that roof.
There can be a vast difference between our communication abilities by written word and by spoken word. My lovely husband (the one I have despite vowing to never marry again) grew up on the reaches of the Gaspe peninsula (spellcheck please) and did not speak a word of English until he joined the military at 18. Now in his early 50′s and living in an English environment, he periodically stumbles the spoken word.
One Sunday we had been to the local farmer’s market and picked up a number of lovely, farm fresh goods. While rumaging through the fridge the next morning, I was trying to think of something to take for lunch. Lovely husband pipped up “what about that Amish thingie?” I admit I need a lot of coffee in the morning, but this one had me totally stumped. “What Amish thingie?” “You know, that Amish we picked up yesterday.” I was racking my brains out trying to think of what the heck he was referring to. “I have no idea what you are talking about.” You know, that Amish stuff we picked up” he firmly stated while walking over to the fridge. He paused and took out a jar. We had picked up some hummis.
I also read a lot and know more big words than I use on a day to day basis . When I’m driving drunk fucktards around In my cab , the big words just confuse them , and then they don’t tip because they’re confused .
Diatribe is apparently pronounced diatrib … Who knew the e was silent .
Stoic … stow ick …. I thought it was oik with an st sort of in front ….
The only person I know who uses ten dollar words is my sister the teacher . She is very verbose .
Hang on – according to all of my dictionaries, diatribe is pronounced pretty much the way it’s spelled (die-a-tribe)?
My tongue-tripper is ‘irrevocable.’ The pronunciation guides all have the emphasis on the ‘rev’ but every real estate agent I’ve ever spoken to puts the emphasis on ‘voc.’ Either way, it’s pretty much unpronounceable.
We still laugh about the incident many years ago when the sharer of my brain cell spent the better part of an evening circling the same grid of Toronto streets, unable to find his destination. “They told me to turn onto ‘Strawn’,” he said, “but I just keep ending up back on ‘Strachan’.”
Tell him not to go to England. Or Wales. You’ll never hear from him again.
‘st-oik’ is great.
Try Rooibos tea ……
I pronounced it in my head as rooo eh bose …
It’s pronounced Roy boss …..
Thanks for this: I could never figure it out either…
When you have a cute accent, all is forgiven. I don’t have a cute accent.
(hummus….heeeeee)
I can’t stop giggling about ‘drunk fucktards’…
I can still remember learning to read and thinking to myself that ‘walk-ed’ and ‘talk-ed’ just didn’t sound right. It wasn’t until I read aloud to my teacher that she corrected me and it finally made sense
If you have ever seen Gerry Dee do his live show (Mr D. on CBC) he does a routine about reading in class and one kid who can’t get anything right. It is too funny, and so spot on.
There’s a fucktards page on FB . I kid you not . A friend introduced me to the word . God bless her , as it’s my job description .
Chasm , I thought it was chaze em . Nope , kaze em ….
Chimera I thought was chim err a . Nope Ki mer a ….
Who’d a thought ?
Ki mer a? Really??
Aw, geez…
Yes Zena anther perfect word , ruined , by the annunciation police .
My daugther, who is actually quite intelligent (gets it from her father), asked me one day what a “cha-hooa-hooa” was. I looked over at what she was reading and informed her it was a small dog. She was trying to pronounce “Chihuahua”. To this day, we call these dogs “cha-hooa-hooas”.
HA! It’s the Les Nessman syndrome!!
Lorraine:
I thought I was the only one! There are words, terms or names that I am comfortable speaking but once I see exactly how they are spelled I find I can no longer pronounce the word with out stumbling.
I have a hard time interpreting symbols and numerous times I have entered the men’s washroom – maybe because I wear jeans and not dresses like on the sign!!! I also have problems with “Pull” and “Push” on doors and the symbols in elevators.
I am reminded of my young granddaughter in a western themed restaurant leaving the table to go to the washroom. She came back to ask her Mom if she was a “Does” (pronounced it duzz) – she said she was sure she wasn’t a “Buck.”
Years ago when I was first married my (starter) husband and I stopped at Ellwood Epps – a fishing/hunting store on the way up North. I had to go to the washroom and my husband pointed me to the back ofthe store. When I got there, there were two doors- one marked “Pointers” and one marked “Sitters” – there were lots of dog photos on the wall and I was hoping I could see the dogs but the doors were only partially opened. I wandered back to where my husband was and told him I couldn’t find the washroom only the rooms were the dogs were. My husband was annoyed at me for being so dumb! (Divorced his ass – never marry a man without a sense of humour.)
Love your column, Lorraine!
Pat
Pointers and sitters? Now I’ve heard everything. Reminds me of a downtown restaurant I used to go to all the time. It’s a Greek restaurant and they put old time drawings of Greek figures on the bathroom doors. Only problem was the male and female drawings looked alarmingly similar. I quickly learned to go to the bathroom before I went out to lunch.
‘Starter’ husband….I like that.
But how would you define a “finisher” husband? When I was a kid during the Vietnam war, I was forever perplexed at how the North Vietnamese could train simians to go to war. I would often hear stories about gorilla warfare in Vietnam….oh, geurilla. Nevermind
Ha, ha – me too!
I knew they weren’t actually gorillas, because they’d show them on the news and they definitely looked like people, but I could never figure out why they were called that.
The gorllas are angry because according to an article on penis length I recently read their schmeckles are only 1 1/2″ long . Gene Simmons’s tonque is longer , lol .
Ew-ew-ew-ew-ew.
He was repulsive even back then (guess that’s why they all needed the makeup). I have to go wash my brain out now.
Eurgh. Shudder…
Gene is a rich celebrity with a lesbian’s tongue .
Celebrity fuckers hoping to advance the old fashioned way on their backs with their legs in the air , like they just don’t care ….
The best one I’ve heard was a buddy of mine pronouncing hyperbole “hyper-bowl”.
Isn’t that on this weekend?
Well, now that Parliament has resumed sitting…
I can add a few more of lovely husband’s stumbling over some words in English (see comment above, he is French). The other night he asked me if I wanted a glass of sprinkling water, we had spanish salad with dinner, we play bowling, we use the ironing table and we close the lights. I think he would qualify as equally disfunctional in both official languages, a plus here in Ottawa.
Does he eat sangwiches too? What’s a Spanish salad?
How about samwich ? The guy in charge of the decoys on duck dynasty called it that , lol .
Ha – it’s ‘samwridge’ in Mr. Zena’s family. We’ve had a lot of fun with that one through the years too. Before I met him, I’d never heard that particular argot before. Actually, I’ve never heard it anywhere else since, either…
Sommerfelds say ‘oinkment’.
The Spanish salad was spinach salad. We had some Amish on the side with with that, all while we were gazing at sheeps in the field.
You know, there’s nothing more sexy than a good French accent. Except maybe a Spanish one. Scottish lilts are pretty awesome too.
Whereas I find English-speakers’ accents (i.e. Canadian or American, as opposed to British) in other languages to be almost painful to listen to. They sound so inept…
I had never heard of a ‘sang-wich’ until I spent my years at Mac with more Italians that I ever knew existed. My little Burlington bubble had never exposed me to anyone name Nino, Dino, or Tino or the fact that these people had an extra kitchen in their basement and the one on the main floor was the ‘good’ kitchen that was rarely used.
As for the hyper-bowl….yep, this Sunday….crockput full of chili and a big bowl of nachos washed down with some very cold beer….can’t wait! Go 49′ers!
Okay, just remembered one more that I have to share: Aloysius.
Alloy-see-us, right?
Pah.
I’d heard the name Aloe-wish-us before, but I never made the connection with the spelling. Like, seriously, who would?
My fiends named their sharpie ( shar pey ) Nuadas ,, new ah da .. gaelic for warrior . My dads dog was Dai Bach … Die Bach .. gaelic for little David . My last dog was named Miko … Me koh .. Japanese for sorcerous ..