Words Words Words.....

G'Day,
I have always found great fun and amusement in words. We depend on them don't we. Language rules our every action and interaction, no matter which language is our language of origin. In particular I get a lot of fun out of other people using the wrong word. No I am not saying I am better and know all there is to know, I am no great brain or expert on such things. But...what I really love is when in conversation, people to whom I am talking try to sound intelligent and use what they think is a really big word then get the word wrong and use it with the incorrect meaning.
Here is for an example, the difference between two similar words. "My husband Bert had a prostrate operation last week, oh the poor old fella has had such a rough time of it." Love it!
Well...... if I had an operation on my nether regions, I am sure it would be much more comfortable if I were prostrate than standing, ha ha.
Last week I was in the local west field shopping mall and looking through one of those Asian style cheapish shops, you know the ones with the gadgets, everything you might want for your house and lifestyle if you knew what you wanted it for? Anyway, in one section of the shop there was a cleaning gadget section which contained cleaning cloths of various varieties, woolen dusters that would fall apart the first time you used them or get hooked in the top of your favorite antique ornament and send it crashing to the floor. Plastic brooms, mops, window squeegees, dust pans and brooms, etc. One item took my attention . It was a plastic floor cleaning tool with a sponge blade on the end. The translation on the packaging said "For warm, clean, homeless feel"
Really funny translation.
Another thing that I have found great joy in is the words that children use when they are learning to master language. My own kids bring many sayings and word variations forth from my memories of their youngest years. Mistakes in word meanings and pronunciation. My second son Dave when he was 2 or 3 years old could not pronounce some word sounds namely Tr. He always said them with an FW in front. So Train was fwain, truck was fwuck etc. We were trying to coach him one day and were saying different words for him to pronounce "Davey say train for Mummy" He replied "Fwain". OK Say "Train tracks" Reply..."Fwain fwacks, haha you get the idea. Next we tried Crackers, which became Fwackers, then I thought hmm, maybe a c word to show him the difference. So I said, say "Cat" so he put the word cat and crackers together, which had us all rolling around laughing ( picturing a cat with crackers, we call fireworks, crackers here) he didn't like that, so he had a bit of a meltdown which made us laugh all the more. Poor little kid. Why didn't we have a video camera in those days? Oh I am still laughing about that, he was so gorgeous.
My youngest child Annie was also a mistress of word play when she was around the same age. Some of her word changes are ones that I still use in my head when thinking to myself and they always make me smile . So cute. She use to call vegemite, megebite. Disappeared became misappeared. If we asked her where something was and she didn't know she would hold her hands out wide and look up at you, shake her head from side to side, with very wide open eyes say, "It's misappeared!" So funny. Similar meaning, which was quite clever of her, but not quite right, hahaha.
Another story of her when she was probably 3 years old. We took the kids to visit my husband's grandmother who was very old at the time. We introduced Nanna Lander as Daddy's grandma. She thought for a while and in her mind must have been working out the concept of great grandmother. She could see that Nanna Lander wasn't the same person as her other Grandma or Nanny so she turned back and said " Oh you are my Nanny- Granny!" Hahaha.
The children I sometimes see while at work come out with great things too. One of my funniest memories happened a few years ago. My son, with whom I work was walking past some kindergarten children one afternoon . He has long red/brown hair and a reddish beard. One little boy stood staring, open mouthed and swiveled to watch my son go past. Then turned to his little companion and said in awe "Did you see that, he is a wookie!" Wookie being that big hairy critter from the star wars movies.
A few weeks ago, we arrived at one of the schools, and a group of children were waiting around for their bus number to be called to go home. I entered one little boy's classroom and he stuck his head around the door and said "Hello" Then called to his playmate to say "Hey Adam! Look it's the Mopper" Ha ha so funny. Well...I guess that's better than being called the rubbish lady, which is what one little girl referred to me as, at another site we clean. I did correct her , she now calls me the cleaner. Kids are so funny.
You have got to love the way little kids minds work haven't you?
I hope you have a lovely Easter break. Today is Good Friday. I made another batch of yummy fig jam. The figs are still going but getting closer to the end of this season's fruiting. There have been so many this year that I think even the little silver eye birds are getting sick of them, lol.
I managed to wipe a few things off my to do list for today, I really need to go wash my baby car. Instead I am here on the computer. Better get to it!
That's about all.
Bye
Love Linda.