THE VERBAL ABUSE OF WORDS

This morning’s “Simon in the Morning” program had a segment on words that are hard for people to pronounce; and asked people to call in with words that are hard for them to say.  For example, Scott has a problem with saying the word, “regularly”.   For Jolynn, it’s Terwilliger, as in the Terwilliger curves.

People were calling in with different words they have trouble saying:  literally, February, ambulance, orange, negligee, linoleum, and others.  Mine is dominoes.  Unless I *really* think about it, I always say “donimoes” instead.

The topic kind of branched out from words that are hard to say, to words that are mispronounced.  Like “Washington”; a lot of people say “Warshington”.   I’ll get to my theory on why this is a bit later in the post.

Someone called and mentioned Couch Street in Portland.  Even though it’s spelled “couch”, (like what you would sit on, pronounced “cow-ch”), the street name is actually pronounced “coo-ch”. 

Of course there’s always “Willamette”, (as in the Willamette River).  The correct pronunciation is “Will-lamb-it”.  Over the years that word has been mispronounced too many ways to list here.  The most common mispronunciation though is, “Will-ah-met-E”.

This whole thing got me to thinking of when my son was little.  He had no problem saying words like “cinnamon”, “aluminum”, “linoleum”, or “Massachusetts”.  However, “breakfast”, “accident”, and “Mexican” were a whole other story.  His pronunciation was always, “breskfast”, “askident”, and “Meskadin”.   At the time he also aspired to be an Izzy’s Pizza “superbiser”. 

One of the funniest things he ever said though was when he was 10 years old, and sound asleep.

It was late at night, and I was on the computer, looking for photos to make a calendar.  My son comes walking into the living room and says, “oh, it’s that guy”.  I ask what guy, he says, “that guy”, (pointing at the computer screen), “Lavid Me Durphy”.  I ask, who again; my son says, (very agitated), “that guy you like, Lavid Me Durphy”. 

At that point it clicked in my head, and I say to him, “oh, you mean David Lee Murphy”.  My son gets very cranky at this point and says, “that’s what I said, LAVID ME DURPHY.  Didn’t you hear me?  I’m going back to bed”, and he did. 

The next morning he didn’t remember ever getting out of bed, or saying “Lavid Me Durphy”, instead of “David Lee Murphy”.  To this day, he can’t say “Lavid Me Durphy” unless he really concentrates on saying it that way.  Yet, sound asleep; he had no problem saying it three times!  

My theory of how the letter “r” gets in to words where it doesn’t belong is simple.

If you listen to people from the east, like Virginia, Massachusetts, etc., a lot of their words that *should* end with an “r”, don’t.  Like “car”, they say “ca”.

I think, somewhere, a long time ago, a very strong wind came blowing in from the east.  It blew all the “r”’s into the Midwest, (like Nebraska, were my grandparents are from).  Those “r”’s got mixed in with their words, like “wash”, making it “warsh”, (that was a big one with my grandma, and my dad still does it).  In the meantime, those in Virginia, Massachusetts, etc., lost those “r”’s, which is why their words come out with no “r”’s on the end.

When people, like my grandparents, moved west, to this area, they brought the extra “r”’s with them; that’s why some people around here say “Warshington”, and stuff.  Just a theory, as I said. 

One word  mispronounced by people everywhere is:  sandwich.  I don’t know how many people I’ve heard over the years say, “sam-witch”, or even worse, “sam-itch”.  ARGH!!!  Drives me crazy!

Before I get too far into THAT subject though, I’ll stop for now, and save it for another time.