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Ways with words...

This article has been submitted by a GrownUps member. GrownUps accepts no liability for its content and the views and information contained within are not necessarily those of the GrownUps website.

I wonder why it is that as we get older, we sometimes get so silly with words? Do we all do it, or is it just a select few? Some of you must know what I mean, When we see a word spelt out, and although we have seen it a million times, this particular time it just doesn't look quite right.

Last year, we were exploring Skipper's Canyon in Otago, and were becoming increasingly aware of the multi cultural history of the place in the days when the creeks, etc. were named. I was reading some of the names out, as we passed them....doing very well, I thought.

" Gee" I observed, " there must have been Italian's here,too." As I read out a vertical name, pronouncing it carefully. " Pippeleeni"

My Other Half roared with laughter as he told me to read it again. I did, and burst into laughter, too. It said " Pipeline" It became a family joke, after that.

I guess it wasn't as bad as my sister, who has been in Australia for the last 15 yrs, and came over for a holiday. She was testing her Maori vocabulary, and read out " Whitty worry " on a shop front which sent the rest of us into peals of laughter. The sign said " Whiteware "..... But it felt oh so good to see someone else try to be overly clever and do the same thing!!

 

Submitted 4th Oct 2007 by GrownUps Member: Christine

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by buzzyBee 7th October 2007 Hi Christine, I think I'm entitled to belong to your club, although I was much younger than I am now. I was reading a book/article... I can't remember... and came accross a word I'd never heard of. I asked my then teenaged daughter "What's a be-droll?" She shrugged and said "Dunno, what's it in relation of?" "Well, it says 'In summer, when you find it difficult to sleep on very hot nights, it helps to use a be- droll' " I said. It turned out it was a bed-roll, they'd just put the hyphen in the wrong place at the end of the sentence. Up to this day we still laugh ourselves silly when on a hot summer's night we say "Don't forget to use your be-droll!"
by Joybel 16th October 2007 When living in Perth I was walking along the pavement and came up to a sandwich board outside an Office Supplies shop. In large letters was written 'Stationary". For a few seconds I knew it was wrong, but then doubts crept in and I wondered if I was wrong. There was a bookshop back a way so I went in to look up the word in a dictionary. I was right, thank goodness, and was not losing it. Stationary v Stationery. Easy to make a mistake? In an Office Supplies shop? Hmm
by Christine 19th October 2007 Maybe the business was at a standstill !!!!
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