Words

[digitS']

The origins of words are a good place to start the mental wheels turning – etymology.

I mispronounce words, commonly. That is common to hard of hearing people. Looking at the word "harbinger," i realized that it doesn't have 3 "r's!" Har-bringer is not correct. Perhaps "arriving before" is a definition rather than bringing something, eh ? Well, "harbor" is a related word ..? Okay, getting farther into the weeds: the harbinger  prepares a place for what follows. Okay, fine .

But here's something more! The "n" is unetymological. What the hay!? You see, the "n" was inserted several centuries after the word came into use. Harbinger.

Wait, there's more! That ding-dang n was also inserted into messenger and passenger. Message. Passage. We'll, if some folks decided to toss in an n — maybe I should be okay looking around for those Har-bringers of Spring here in a few months .

Stev e

 

[SPedigrees]

I mispronounce words, commonly. That is common to hard of hearing people. Looking at the word "harbinger," i realized that it doesn't have 3 "r's!" Har-bringer is not correct. P

I've called breakfast "breakfrast" all my life without realizing it until I noticed my sister using the same mispronunciation. That extra 'r' is almost unnoticeable to bystanders, and it must surely have come from our midwestern/upper peninsula near ancestors. Surrounded by those of Norwegian ancestry, while not sharing that ancestry, was enough to impart a lot of extra 'r's. Humans are great mimics. And yes, I add an extra 'r' to harbinger too. You were probably hearing correctly when you added in that extra digit.

 

[flowerbug]

i used to work with someone who said Wriskonsin (yes it was in the UP of MI over on the western side).

 

[Alasgun]

Well heck; i’ll just throw in here that i invented a word one time!
“Scrotium-mutinate” ; i tell people, when you roll a can, jar or package over in the grocery store to read the ingredients; all them words you can’t pronounce are “scrotium-mutinate”.

And yes; im fully aware, im not the sharpest tool in the shed!
Mike

 

[digitS']

@flowerbug ,

My grandmother had a friend in British Columbia who had migrated there from Yorkshire in England. She lived about 15 years longer than Grandma Goldie and I was able to visit with her a number of times, into my adulthood.

She thought that it was quite funny how so many Washingtonians called the state war-shing-ton . I don't know where that comes from or how much it persists to this day.

I do know that many westerners came here from the southern states and many in the Pacific Northwest from the Upper Midwest. International immigrants from Central Europe, the Volga Deutsch, were arriving here over 100 years ago. Vah-shing-ton ..?

 

[flowerbug]

@digitS'

a current friend says squash as sqwarsh.

where i was at the university there were enough people on staff working there in various jobs that had the very strong finnish brogue and after a while i could understand them well enough but some were very thick that it was a challenge.

where i grew up we spoke "tv english" like Morrow and Cronkite. i'd never heard a deep southern accent in person for any length of time other than some tv shows until i'd gone house hunting in the hills of TN and NC, i had rented a room from a lady in Asheville NC and she was understandable, but i also rented a room for a few days from a flop house in Johnson City TN and one of the people who stayed there was a retired sherriff. i could understand about 1 in 10 of the words he spoke and he told me a lot of stories that i wasn't always sure what he was talking about but we got on ok. i listened and he talked. it did not help that he had very few teeth left.

as for funny made up words that involve some form of scrot a teenage friend of mine came up with the name "Scroter" for an imaginary pet. like any teenage guys we found such a thing pretty funny. i'm sad though that he won't write these days.