Bonus. Two posts in one.
I heard on the radio the other day a discussion about words that you read and know the meaning of, but don't connect them to the word you hear. Many examples were given and most were quite understandable. I found myself not thinking, you idiot.
Mine is hyperbole. Do I have to spell it out? Bit hard. Ok, I saw hyper bowl. Absolutely nothing like the word. I was in my twenties before the dawning of the age of Aquarius.....sorry slipped there, before I realised my hyper bowl was hyperbole.
And to the tram stop. I was a kid, coming home from the show in EJ Holden. It was a dark and wet night and I could not understand how my father could see where he was going. I knew it would be about half an hour before we saw the Dandy ham and bacon pig lifting his top hat.
Staring out into the dark, I kept seeing signs warpped around metal poles that said, 'Cars Stop Here'. What cars? Father was ignoring the signs and not stopping, so they must be for something else. Taxis, I reckoned. There must be some system in Melbourne for catching taxis. They only stop for you where there is the sign 'Cars Stop Here'. I was satisfied with my explanation and thought no more about it.
They were of course, tram stops. Stops for tram cars. Why didn't I ask at the time. Dad would have known. He used to catch trams as a kid. He and his closest aged brother used to use a peashooter at the conductor.
Got any similar childhood misunderstanding? Got a word that you never connected the written with the spoken until well after you should have known better?
Hyper-bowl(hyperbole) was one of mine too, and similarly "Penelope" with "-lope" pronounced as a single syllable to rhyme with "dope".
ReplyDeleteFor years I misread the street sign that warns drivers to watch out for other traffic joining the highway, as "meringue traffic" -- didn't make any sense, but sounded good to me!
OMG Altissima. Penelope was another of mine. Meringue traffic is perhaps quite appropriate.
ReplyDeleteI still, to this day, get stuck on hyperbole. Of course, considering I'm quite the muddle-headed unit I get caught on plenty of words. 'Doubt' was one that troubled me as a kid, I always read it as 'doubt it'. There's plenty of others too, but it's just too early to think of them.
ReplyDeleteIf pressed I guess I could come up with more Mutant. Hyperbole seems common, it would seem.
ReplyDeleteThat is so weird. I heard hyperbole for the first time a few days ago. It was pronounced totally different from what I expected.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a second to connect the word I heard to the word I've seen so many times.
The idea that's nagging at me though is the hyperbole you heard might sound totally different from the one I heard.
I'll have a crack Dina.
ReplyDeletehy PERB oleigh
Sound right?
Do you remember an office building near St Kilda junction that for years had a 'to let' sign on the roof? Well, when I was a kid, I thought it said 'toilet'. I thought the 'i' had fallen off or was hidden from view! Vik.
ReplyDeleteThe Cadbury Schweppes building Vik? A mighty big toilet.
ReplyDeleteThere used to be a Hoyts Palatial Cinema near where I lived as a child which I always thought was pronounced 'Pah-lat-ee-al'. I did not connect it as palatial (ie; like a palace) until years later.
ReplyDeleteI think I might have done the same Victor, had I seen the word. There does seem to be certain words that younguns struggle with. There must be some illogicality about them.
ReplyDelete