Pasghetti

When I was little, I got made fun of because I couldn’t say “poodle.” I don’t know why, but I pronounced it, “pooldle.”  I was the source of entertainment when Betty and Neil Edwards came to visit my parents.

“Vickie, tell Betty here what kind of a dog you want?……………(They laugh)………..(I realize what she is doing)………What kind of dog was that again, Vickie? …………(They snicker again, waiting for the short haired skinny girl in peddle pushers to say “pooldle” one more time so they can laugh at me)…………What?………..A chihuahua? That’s not what you just said.  What kind of dog do you really want?…………..Vickie, you do not want a German Shepherd………..Tell Betty what kind of dog you want? You just said it…………..Vickie………No, not a collie………..Vickie, tell her…………..No, you can’t have a cat…………..You know what, just go to your room.”

 So, I was sent to my room for not mispronouncing a word wrong for their amusement. What a loon.

The only other thing that confused me when I was little was when I first heard my mom tell my dad when he went into the kitchen to get her a  ”Cuppa Coffee.” I thought it was like Maxwell House coffee. There was no Cuppa Coffee can anywhere. Just Maxwell House.

 When I became a mother, I used to write down the cute words my children mispronounced. I realized I had become my mother when I asked my son, Adam, where he wanted to go for dinner.

“F*cky Chide Chicken.”  I looked at my husband and we had a hard time not laughing in his face. I had to walk into the other room to contain myself. So, we asked him several times. He was too young to understand that we just wanted to hear it again…..and again….and again.  Soon, most of our relatives heard Adam say where he wanted to go for dinner. We finally went there because he was probably wondering why it took days of saying, “F*ucky Chide Chicken” and he still didn’t have any chicken.

 My daughter, Alex, had sweet mix-ups. She said “pasghetti.”  I realize that a lot of little ones say that by mistake, but she was just so darn cute. As she got older, she let me know that she hated  ”Porp chocks” and didn’t buy it for a minute when I told her it was a type

Does he have a Musnatch?

 of chicken. She used to play the game, “Guess Who” with her dad, and would always ask, “Does your person have a musnatch?” (mustache)  I swear, she was just so darn cute.

 The best one came when she got off of the bus when she was in third grade and told me that they had a substitute because “Mrs. Clovis has a Science infection.”   And it was awful when both kids got the “chicken pops.”

And watch out that you don’t get hung up on the “Bob wire” fence. Oh wait, that’s what I thought it was.

 When I started subbing,  I had a first grader who pronounced my married name wrong. I realized it was a hard name to pronounce, and I really am so glad I went back to my maiden name when I divorced.  My name was “Pellillo” as in PE-LIL-LOW.  So, the little first grader raised her hand and said, “Mrs. Padildo…..” I looked around to see when the laughing would start. But, they were first graders. It was an honest mistake…she called me that all day. 14 times to be exact. I kept tally marks.

 I worked with a good friend who butchered the English language.  “Interpretate” for “Interpret,”   “A doggy dog whirl” for “A dog eat dog world” and “for all intensive purposes.” Of course, this is the same friend who asked me if the Atlantic Ocean was infinite or did it stop somewhere. So, you know…

In the end, we all make mistakes with the English language. Some of us finally learn to talk right, some of us will always say “lieberry” instead of “library.”  We don’t know it’s wrong, until someone points it out to us.

I’m glad I told my son it wasn’t “pepper pony”, as he called it when he as little.  A 25 year old ordering pizza would really get laughed at. Darn….

About these ads