End of the Week Silliness

The other day, I was reading something where the writer talked about seeing a word for the first time, and thinking it was pronounced one way, and then actually hearing it correctly pronounced later in life, and asked readers to contribute their own experiences.  It was amusing to read, and made me think of when that has happened to me.  Which of course, then led to other amusing and random thoughts, and now I have to share them.

So here you are.

Sleuth - when I was a kid I read all of the Nancy Drew mysteries.  The books always referred to her as a "girl sleuth," and I had never seen nor heard that word before.  Therefore, I figured out in my head that it was pronounced "slee-uth."  Being as it is not a word used often in everyday conversation, it was only years later, during an episode of Masterpiece Theater, where they were showing a a dramatization of an Agatha Christie novel, and the host mentioned that Miss Marple was one of the "best known sleuths around the world," and I thought - Oh that's how it's pronounced ...

C'mon - I realized this was a contraction, but was certain it meant "See you on Monday" (really).  And sentences like "C'mon, let's go outside and play" were really puzzling to me.  FINALLY it occurred to me that it meant, "Come on," and it was a revelation.  But then for a long time afterwards, I'd see it and know it wasn't what I had originally thought, but couldn't remember what it was instead.  WHAT??

Related to that, my niece Amanda used to say "ashpoo" instead of "shampoo," which we all still occasionally say.

Similarly, we always purposely mispronounce "scissors" as "skissors," and "Indianapolis" as two words, "Indiana Polis."  Which is amusing, except sometimes I can't remember which is the correct word ...

Next:

For the first few years we lived in Philadelphia, there would be commercials on local stations advertising the wonderful places to go skiiing in the Pocono Mountains.  Since then, they have changed the website to something like SkiingthePoconos.com.  But originally, the URL was: http://poconoski.com.  Every single time I'd see it, I'd wonder why, in order to find out about skiing in the Poconos, you needed to type in a Polish last name - i.e., Poconoski.  Sigh.

Now, three stories related to movies/word confusion.

Story 1

When I was in late high school/early college, two popular movies were "Shaft" with Richard Roundtree, and "Sleuth" with Michael Caine - completely different stories, etc.  Well, my mother and I went to see "Sleuth" because she was a big Michael Caine fan.

Fast forward a few years, and a sequel to "Shaft" arrives - "Shaft in Africa."  Everyone was talking about it, and it was quite popular.  So one day, The Tim and I were talking about going to a movie, and my mother said, "You know what movie I really want to see?  'Sleuth in Africa.'"  Imagine her disappointment when we pointed out her mistake.

Story 2

Going back to "Shaft," you may or may not know that a new movie is out by that name, which is apparently about the son of the original character.  Two of The Tim's co-workers were talking about it, and one said that he had really wanted to go and see it, but would wait until it was on TV, because he didn't want to "spend money on a movie that's only a hour long."  The other one said, "What do you mean, it's only an hour long?" and the first guy said, "Well, I looked to see when it was showing, and it said 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, etc."   Oh dear.

Story 3

When the movie "Fatal Attraction" came out, The Tim's parents really wanted to go and see it.  When they came back, all they could talk about was how awful it was.  His mom said, in a disappointed tone, "It turns out that Glenn Close wasn't even in it, like everyone says."

Well, we learned why - they'd gone to see "Fatal Beauty" with Whoopi Goldberg and Sam Elliott instead ...

Another mix-up from my mother.

Years before we moved here, The Tim's oldest brother and his family moved here for the brother's job.  When we told my mother, the following conversation occurred:

Mom:  My friend ____'s daughter is moving to Philadelphia, too.  She got into a two-year program to study how to become a paraplegic.

The Tim:  If it was a four-year program, would she become a quadriplegic?

Mom:  I guess so.

Of course, once we explained why we were laughing so hard, she thought it was hilarious too.  :-)

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I hope you have a good weekend, and find something to laugh about.  Don't forget, if you want to try for a chance to win the latest Christmas in July giveaway, comment on that post before midnight on Sunday.  :-)