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(Mis)understood Words
Have you ever heard a word used by someone who clearly didn’t understand it? Sometimes, it is the pronunciation (corpseman, obgynie), sometimes it’s totally the wrong word. And sometimes, the wrong word almost makes sense — those are my favorites.
One of my first examples was in the 6th grade when the teacher was explaining the circulatory system. He kept talking about the “Red Blood Corpsuckles.” I was in my wanting-to-be-a-doctor phase, was pretty sure that was not right, and did my best to correct him. (I’m still in my obnoxious-kid stage.)
My first boss in “the real world” was taking a weekly Dale Carnegie self-improvement course when I first started working for him. I could always tell what the lesson for the week was. For example, in the “get to know your coworkers” week, he took me to lunch. During “improve your vocabulary” week, he told me he was being “undulated” by paperwork. I thought the visual image was actually pretty good.
A co-worker used to talk about getting “to the crust” of the matter and sometimes, he would argue that an item was a “mute” point. In both cases, the wrong word sort of made sense.
At the same company, a line supervisor used to talk about someone coming up with a “good ideal.” I think she was the same one that one that once referred to the roots of her hair as “hair fossils.”
It is pretty common for one of our dogs to figure out what we are about to do before we even talk about it. At one of these times, my wife turned to me and said: “He must have ESPN.”
Sometimes, I worry that I am guilty of this mistake at times. I’ve always heard “it’s time to go to the mat” with respect to fighting a particular issue. That made sense to me; I was a wrestler in high hchool and “going to the mat” had a specific meaning. In the last two weeks, I’ve heard the phrase “go to the mattress” at least three times. I am no longer sure which is correct.
What about you — have you come across any of these? I’m particularly interested in the ones where the wrong word almost makes sense.
Published in Group Writing
My former mother-in-law said “Rhododendrum,” and she called the arctic birds “puffkins” instead of puffins. Her daughter, with a Ph.D in Communication, said “dilapitated” for “dilapidated,” and “fluorine” when she meant “fluoride.” They also said “sherbert” for “sherbet.” I absolutely hate to hear “sherbert.” There is no second “r,” people!
Sherbert.
I am Guilty.
Sherbert
Oh My! You just nailed me and my whole family. Maybe its a Southern thing, but it was either “sherbert” or “sorbet” if we were getting fancy. I may have to stick with ice cream.
Sherbert is an alternative spelling.
I remember a French Canadian guy telling me he jumped into a river on the sperm of the moment to save a little girl from drowning.
Expresso bothers me.
Oh dear…
It is not!
Welp, now that everyone hates me (what do you mean, you already hated me), I’ll add that my own Southern mother also said “sherbert” and so did her mother.
I’m still waiting for someone to explain what’s wrong with sherbert.
Yreka, California
There is no second “r”! I mean why not say “”haliburt” for “halibut”? Never mind, this is not the hill to die on haha
Home of Jodi Arias!
Meh. As many different accents as I’ve dealt with, something like that isn’t going to bother me. Now, ‘vicious circle’ or ‘a tough road to hoe’? Those bother me.
My mother, not a sports nut, always thought baseball was divided into 9 endings. Hmmm …
I agree. Ice cream is better. Is Gelato better than both of them?
Assimilation. It is a phonological process. And you will be assimilated. Resistance is feudal — er, I mean futile!
I don’t like it that the expression “earth-shaking” has morphed into “earth-shattering.” It’s as if people felt the need to up the ante or something, like “shaking” wasn’t dire enough to express their feelings. And everyone now says “The proof is in the pudding.” Wrong! I might be a curmudgeon, not sure.
When our daughter was about 9 or so she would let us know she had become ‘mixfused’ about something hard to understand. Made perfect sense to me.
Oh, but it is!!!!
We love using these.
But the phrase should be, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
The proper pronunciation for “sherbet” is: Blue Bell Ice Cream.
Exactly. But I guess they can’t call it “In the Eating Bowls.”
When my daughter was little, she thought thunder was “The Under.”
And doesn’t every child in the (English speaking) universe say “ba-sketti” for spaghetti?
Bi-sketti
Or sketti for short.
My little sister thought zucchini squash was “squashed bikini” when she was 3.
I now wish to take a moment to salute @willowspring for a fun thread with no political poison, where people who snipe at each other elsewhere are gathering to share laughter.
Here’s how one of my other sisters said the alphabet: H I J K Mella Fella Fee.
And here I thought mebbe the pudding was spiked…
That’s Jell-O.