Funny Mispronunciations

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One of the occupational hazards of being a reader is using a word in speech that one has read silently and stumbling in the pronunciation of said word.  There’s nothing like saying a word with confidence but incompetence, watching the listener screw up their face either in confusion or laughter, hearing the illuminating correction and having a hearty laugh at yourself. 

One of the joys of listening to books read on Librivox is catching an ‘oops’ from the mouth of their lovely volunteer readers.  I laugh out loud when ‘the patience of Job’ is pronounced like a wage earner.  One of the joys of listening to professionally produced books on tape is catching one of my own mistakes.  “Oh, is that how you say it?”

My last name is commonly mispronounced.  Before “No Call”, I was tipped off to telemarketers by the botched pronunciation.  The grocery store clerks who look at the receipt and say “Thank you, Miz ________” make me laugh too.

And for those who care:  Magistra Mater is  Mah-GEE(hard G)-struh  MAH-tair  Think “TEA with MaGEEstra.”

Proper Nouns

Wodehouse  – it’s supposed to rhyme with wood
Cowper – sounds like Cooper
Goethe – my SIL’s mother quoted Goethe and pronounced it GO-eth. 

“Mother, that name is  GERT-a” she said with the proper form-your-mouth-like-an-o-and-say-e-technique, to which her mother replied, “You can call it GERT-a if you’d like; I’ll say  GO-eth.”

Isak Dinesen – for years, in my mind I said DINE-sen,

until I heard it correctly spoken DIN-es-sen

Camus – it is not CAY-mus, it’s caMOO
Dumas – another French name to trip you up: dooMAH
Keats and Yeats – wah, wah they don’t rhyme! KEETS and YATES

Edinburgh – it looks like it should end with a burg, right?  Not!  ED-in-BURR-a

My Oopses

primer – long i when it’s paint. But if it’s a book of elementary information

you say PRIMmer

Orion – there was confusion when I said ORion instead of ohRYAN
vegan – hard and soft g’s trip me up all the time. 

I thought this was VEJen instead of VEEgan

bade – the past tense of bid is pronounced BAD – forget the silent e
victual – doesn’t it look like VICK-shoe-ol?  Nah, it’s pronounced VITtle
jihad – not that long ago I said JIE-had.  Ouch! 

Everyone else knows it is jih-HAHD

Oopses from Others

xylophone – my son thought this was pronounced ex-CELL-a-PHONE
roughage – one former boss gave this a French twist, saying ROO-ahzj
chihuahua – a friend’s husband said chih-WHO-ah-WHO-ah
synecdoche – William Safire wrote about Jerry Brown (remember him?)

saying SIN-ec-DOACH in an interview. Safire pondered the etiquette of correcting a governor; the correct pronunciation is sih-NEK-duh-KEY

I’ve run out of time to ponder and remember my favorites. 

Help me out, would you?  Correct my corrections, if need be.

What words have you or yours mispronounced?

Thrills in the Thrift Store

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This is one sweet book.  I’ve held my DIL’s copy hostage for at least
two years.  Now I can remove it from my PaperBackSwap wish list;
my request was 79 of 87 for the hardcover, 67 of 77 for the paperback!


Soap dispenser that matches my shower curtain!


I’ve been looking for art for my guest room.  I don’t like the frame
color on this Monet, but paint covers a multitude of sins. $9.99 <grin>


This little wooden figurine reminds me of Christian in Pilgrims Progress. 
It will go on the bookshelf near that book.
A profile shot reminds me of Carson’s backpack.


This water pitcher appealed to me more when I picked it up than just looking at
it. It just felt good to hold.  Mel liked it too.  I offered it to her. She demurred.
I offered it again.  She was concerned about getting it home unbroken.
I went for the kill, and offered to buy it for myself.
Christian service, and all.


The pièce de résistance is a footed cake stand. 
I have secretly yearned for a footed cake stand for several years.
There it was.
Goodbye Tupperware.
In the beautiful life, glass trumps plastic every time.

Sampling Heaven

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Yesterday was a magical day.  I had The Most Thrilling Thrift experience, but that will get its own glorious post when my camera is back. An ivory moon played peek-a-boo among the treetops and hills on our car ride home. It drew the gauzy clouds over its face like a toddler who supposes she can’t be seen. My long friend Mel came for a visit and we found ourself tooling around Boise, in that delicious position, outside the Get from Point A to Point B mentality, where we were free to stop wherever our whims took us. 

As we drove on a major artery, I craned my head looking for a street address to get my bearings. 

“Great Harvest Bread Company – doesn’t that look wonderful?” I said.

“Let’s stop,” Mel replied. 

It was a lovely bakery, the nutty aroma of wheat dough invitation enough.  The woman behind the counter was the perfect balance of helpfulness and reserve.  We chatted amiably when she said, “You look so familiar to me.”

I shrugged and mentioned my home town with a questioning lilt. 

“Do you know ____?” she mentioned her sister-in-law’s name, (V) a dear friend, neighbor, and home schooler.
 
Suddenly it clicked.  V and I stayed at her (E’s) house twelve years ago when we came to Boise for a Andrew Pudewa writing seminar.

“But I thought you moved to Michigan,” I said.

“We moved back.” she grinned.

One night.

Twelve years ago.

What do I remember?

“I remember that you had a lovely teacup collection that you’d gotten at thrift stores.  I remember that your house smelled wonderful even though you had a baby in diapers.”   I didn’t say it, but I remember how the harmony between the kids, the love that lubricated the relationships made it such a comfortable home to be in.

“You know what I remember about you?  You asked how I home schooled.  I told you that I used many different materials and methods.  You responded, ‘Oh, you’re an Eclectic Homeschooler.’  And I’ve used that term ever since.”

I find this “chance” encounter as good an argument for the existence of God as The Argument of Efficient Causality.  More than an apologetic, it is a delight, an unexpected gift.   Like the delicious and satisfying sliver of Honey Wheat bread E was sampling, that little encounter was a foretaste of heaven.

Friday’s Stuff

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Snap the Whip   ~ Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer is a wonderful go-to artist for Fine Art Friday.

It is better to keep quiet and be real,
than to chatter and be unreal.
It is a good thing to teach if, that is,
the teacher practices what he preaches.
~  Ignatius of Antioch
(ouch!)

Magistra’s Dictionary:

i • ro • ny:  deer (pl) frolicking in our front yard
while men pack for hunting trip this weekend.

con • viv • i • al • i • ty: a girlfriend weekend with Mel

I’m headed to Boise to collect her from the airport. 
And shop. And talk.  But our chatter will be *real*. <grin>
Y’all have a great weekend. 
(In heaven I’m going to be a southern girl.)

The Pearl

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“In the town they tell the story of the great pearl, how it was found, and how it was lost again.  They tell of Kino the fisherman and of his wife Juana, and of the boy Coyotito.  And because the story has been told so often, it has taken root in every man’s mind.”

This short novella by Steinbeck immediately brought to mind The Pearl of Great Price, the parable of the man who sells everything to get the pearl. When Kino  finds the mother of all pearls he sees it as the end of poverty and the beginning of opportunity for his family.   In the end it costs him what is most dear to him.  The Pearl is a portrait of greed; no one is immue.  Steinbeck began this story after The Grapes of Wrath had won the Pulitzer Prize, while he was pondering the impact of personal prosperity.

In discussions of the lottery (which I think of as a voluntary tax) this would be good reading.  Studies have concluded that many lottery winners eventually end up miserable. No profanity in this one, just great writing and  much to discuss.  I highly recommend it.

Morning Routine

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Cindy calls it Morning Time.  She has 20 Morning Time posts: you will be inspired to read them all.  We call it Morning Routine.  This is the time we begin together at the table.  I am remodeling our Morning Routine this week.  Exercise, brekkers and shower come first on both plans.

Before:

Read chapter of Bible   from what we were studying at the time
Sing Psalm     mix learning new ones with reviewing familiar ones
Pray   don’t ask me why, but this has always followed the singing
Read Psalm from the Vulgate    One verse in English, one in Latin
Read Catechism question    Currently WLC
Read a poem   reading through different anthologies

Remodeled:

Pray   We will begin with the daily prayer from the Lutheran Book of Prayer.  It has four weeks of daily prayers.  I would like our prayer life to grow in maturity; I like the tone and posture of these prayers.  On a tired Friday morning I want us to pray, “Send me, O Lord, into the tasks of this day rejoicing.”  

Read chapter of Proverbs   This is how we began school back in 1994, our first year of home schooling.  I’m returning to my roots, at least for autumn.  I even like the idea of picking one verse and copying it in a journal.  I remember one of my former lit students told me he was working on handwriting, and he was a high school junior at the time.

Sing Psalm    Continue on our course with more emphasis on memorization.  My husband puts me to shame with the hymns and psalms he has stored in his head.  He works on them on his lunch half hour.  Many psalms we sing are challenging musically; I have a fond hope that my son is improving in musical sight reading.

Catechism   Continue through WLC; re-evaluate when we are completed.  This makes me laugh, though.  When I was growing up catechism is what the poor kids in the Catholic church did.

Poetry    Continue through The Top 500 Poems for three weeks of the month. [Oh – Oh – and when we complete that the next anthology is The Oxford Book of English Verse.  Yippee!! ] One week during the month we will focus on one poet (Frost, Service, Cowper, Bradstreet, Kipling, etc.).  My greatest aid in sustaining any interest in poetry in my son has been Jeeves and Wooster.  More than once, Collin has read or listened to a story that referenced a poem the same week that we had read it.  The glow of recognition keeps us going.

Art   This is an addition which requires more thought and planning on my part.  We have several books to work from.  I like the drip, drip of daily exposure with a concentrated focus on one artist, one week a month.  I plan to watch Sister Wendy’s art films to educate myself.  

When I get to this point, I always want to add more.  One year we read through Grant & Wilbur’s Christian Almanac.  I’d love to do that again.  I’d love to read the Proverbs in the Vulgate.  I’d love to work through our set of People and Places and pray for the nations, learning a microbit about them each day.  I’d love to incorporate prayer for those being martyred, to raise our awareness of our brothers and sisters in chains. 

This is where my husband shines.  He has such a skill at estimating the time it takes and making priorities.  He’s always subscribed to the philosophy of Do A Few Things Well. 

Looking Over the Edge

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You must be sure of two things: you must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. 

And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honourable to you to be doing something else.   You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying, There’s this and there’s that – if I had this or that to do, I might make something of it.  No matter what a man is – I wouldn’t give twopence for him – here Caleb’s mouth looked bitter, and he snapped his fingers – whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn’t do well what he undertook to do.    

~ George Eliot in Middlemarch

This last week before school begins, this week before we celebrate those who labor by goofing off, I’m thinking about work, praying and preparing for long, hard days ahead.  I confess that I do look over the edge of my work.  Just this morning I was yearning for the opportunity to read something “just for fun” aka  self-indulgent stuff.   The summer has come and will soon be over.  I have two years left of home schooling and I would surely like to “learn to do it well” without excuses (“there’s this and there’s that”) or whining.

Gearing Up to Labor

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It is not only prayer that gives God glory, but work.  Smiting on an anvil, sawing a beam, whitewashing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in his grace you do it as your duty.  To go to communion worthily gives God great glory, but to take food in thankfulness and temperance gives him glory too.   To lift up hands in prayer gives God gory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand, a woman with a slop pail gives him glory too.  His is so great that all things give him glory if you mean they should.  So then, my brethren, live.
                          ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Principle or Foundation

Simple Pleasures on a Saturday in August

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~  The colors in my garden

I love the deep purple of eggplant.  Aubergine.  What a delicious word.

~  The Railway Children DVD, based on E. Nesbit’s book.
Superb viewing for the whole family. 
Edwardian England, Bobbie, Phil and Peter, and the Sussex countryside.
I loved the book and it follows it quite faithfully.
C.S. Lewis read and was influenced by Nesbit. 
She was quite unorthodox in her personal life,
but she wrote warm books rich in family life. 
The Treasure Seekers and The Wouldbegoods are my two favorites.

~  The absence of back to school shopping. 
Y’all enjoy the malls and box stores. 
I’m home in the garden with my music and books.

~  A clear phone and DSL connection.
After months of calls to DSL technical support,
a friend suggested we call the regular phone company.
They came out and the phone line had been
chewed almost in two by squirrels.  Rodents!

~  Sunrise over the mountains.  It’s opening day of archery season
and I woke up to say goodbye to my hunters.
I’m remembering a sunrise we experienced 23 years ago today.
I watched that sunrise holding this bundle of a boy in my arms.


Happy Birthday Carson!

What simple pleasures are you enjoying this day?