English Geekery

I grew up in a house that spoonerized.  A lot.  To the point that I have a list of phrases that I must stop and carefully think through before I say them, otherwise they come out as yever net or swell foop.  I was once so tired that I informed my friend SnarkyDad that he had widerspebs up in the corner of his entryway.  It made perfect sense to my spoonerizing-prone brain, but took SnarkyDad a good ten seconds to catch up with my warped mind.

I'm telling you, I grew up talking about Rindercella and her three sisty uglers, and Whow Snite and the Dweven Sarves.

Oh, yes.  And Beeping Sleauty.

I used to crack up in helpless giggles at the sound of the word purple when I was small.

I got an email from my dad back at the start of the current Iraqi conflict, asking what the most fun city name was that had been in the news lately.  Jalalabad.  (It's in Afghanistan, if you were wondering.)

Yes, my mental funny bone is still tickled by funny-sounding names like Ypsilanti and Conococheague.


Dad and I keep a list of the amusing street names we've come across, places like Mud Level Road (you have to wonder about the history of that particular nomenclature) and Temporary Drive (which, despite its name, is paved asphalt).

I love Victor Borge's phonetic punctuation and inflationary language.

If nothing else, all this proves my love of words and the English language.

Or it just proves I'm nuts.  Which, to be honest, if you haven't figured out now, it still shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

And it should explain why I loved this poem about English pronunciation.

I only had one word trip me up.  Momentarily.  And only because I'd never seen it before.

Yes, I know.

That's frightening.

Welcome to my husband's world.