*To hear an audio reading and sample The Uncommon Discourse Podcast format, click the embedded file below.*
Nobody likes to feel stupid so it is infuriating when our language trips us up. I’m not talking about auto-correct or remembering which too to use, I’m talking about blatantly butchering a word and being too stupid to know.
This happens to me all the time with food words.
Genoa salami. Quinoa. Sherbet (for some reason I add an extra “r,” making it Sherbert, as if it were a character in the comic strip Dilbert).
I refuse to say Jenny’s favorite brand of yogurt, Fage, because the way I read it may be considered a hate crime in California.
Since they make me so uncomfortable, none of these items exist to me when I’m inside a grocery store. I’d rather go without than risk the embarrassment of bumbling through my pronunciation again.
I only order hard salami because I can’t say genoa and I sure as heck never even try for the prosciutto. Someone tried to correct me on mozzarella once but I’m comfortable that showed more of a shortcoming on their behalf than mine.
She sounded like a knockoff of Super Mario and I switched my preference to parmesan. It’s just easier that way.
Like an insecure teenager, I try to make jokes about it, but everyone sees through it. I went to a hoity-toity bakery in Mystic, Connecticut, and masked my terror at ordering a croissant by emphatically calling it a cwosant, like the pretentious hosts of America’s Test Kitchen.
It reminded me of the semester when I had a Spanish professor with a horrible lisp who tried to convince us he was using the Barthelona pronunciation.
Thee thaynor, no me goothta porque tu thound ludicruth.
It’s particularly bad at a restaurant where you’ve got an ongoing relationship with the server. I never want the person handling my food to have a negative impression of me, and I certainly don’t want them to think I’m dumb.
I’m a big fan of Greek gyros, but someone I trust on such issues told me twenty years ago that they’re properly pronounced gee-ros, even though I’ve never heard anyone say that with a straight face.
But it still gets into my head every time I try to order one so that I just end up pointing to the menu where it says gyro platter and saying, “I’ll have the platter.”
There is one waiter who calls me on this at a diner that Jenny and I frequent. So when he’s our server, I pronounce it “cheeseburger.” Who needs all that drama?
I struggle with names too.
I had a boss who was a Tara and a former coworker who was a Tara and they both were adamant that you pronounce their name correctly. But I could never remember which was which, even though I worked with them a decade apart.
All I could remember is that they really cared, so I hesitated when referring to them by name every single time. I just led with direct eye contact and started talking. They never noticed!
Duplicate word uses are a problem for me. We’ve all shared a laugh when someone says do do, because it sounds like poo. I try not to say it, but I do do it fairly often.
More often, I struggle with had had and that that. So often that that is something I hardly even notice anymore.
Hooked on Phonics worked for me, but only through the basic levels.
We’re thrilled to launch a full first season of The Uncommon Discourse Podcast, where acclaimed storyteller Chris Gaffney reads and discusses ten of his most popular humor columns.
Each episode is under ten minutes long and features Chris reading a favorite article along with a brief description of why the article means so much to him.
Find Season 01 on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn.com, or stream/download episodes here: https://uncommondiscourse.com/podcast.
If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.
If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.
You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].