Dan St. Yves: Word slips
Words are tricky things, and Lord knows I’ve mangled my fair share of them over the years. Most often that has been entirely intentional, like when I play around with a popular phrase (“well, that’s just water under the fridge…”) or insert a similar word for the one which should really appear (“the latest diet trend is basically avoiding carps – which is great, I’m not all that fond of fish anyway”).
Recently I’ve heard a few words or phrases that weren’t actually spoken out of turn intentionally. I think maybe it’s just how those folks may have heard them and then presumed that interpretation to be accurate, like an often misunderstood song lyric, or anything ever uttered by Bob Dylan.
For example, Dolce & Gabbana is a boutique fashion house for women, and men that don’t typically wear cowboy hats or spit on sidewalks. Dolce & Cabana is a sweet Italian hut or shade structure. Just speculating here, but if you are male and ever say something like “what a sweet Italian hut or shade structure you’ve got there”, you are likely a fan of Dolce & Gabbana.
Speaking of Italy, there’s a popular greeting in that language that you’re likely familiar with – “Arrivederci”. If I had to make an embarrassing confession, I once thought that the phrase had something to do with construction materials. Why else would anyone talk about steel concrete reinforcement rods – a rebar derrchi? If someone’s waving a rebar around, you don’t need to say farewell in any language – I can take a hint.
One misspoken medical term I heard recently actually made a bit of sense. I heard a woman say that her brother suffered from “sleep napnea”. Maybe he does, but he might also be affected by sleep “apnea”, a disorder that causes afflicted individuals to pause while breathing in their sleep. Napnea might be related, but it sounds like something of a somewhat briefer nature. Or a hand cream. “Try New & Improved Napnea, to smooth out those wrinkles and dissolve liver spots!”
My favourite slip of the tongue was just the other day, when a friend was discussing a trip to the drugstore. He needed to pick up some pharmaceuticals, but somehow that message came out scrambled. He instead remarked that he needed to pick up his “phart”-a-ceuticals. Either that was a Freudian slip at a moment when he was trying to avoid doing something in my presence, or he has health issues I frankly don’t need to know about. Try Bean-o pal, it’s available over the counter.
You know, mistakes aren’t always made while speaking. I noticed a vehicle parked outside a strip mall the other day, with large lettering indicating the company’s business – pest control. However, rather than a disgusting graphic of a cockroach or hairy multi-legged creepy crawler, the artist had added in a cute little puppy. So the company’s owner either doesn’t care to get into a filthy crawlspace and root out a black widow’s nest, or he’s a dyslexic dogcatcher, and meant to have “Pets Control” imprinted on the side of his van.
Slips of the tongue – they make us smile, and after you jot down enough of them, you can literally fill a column with the little purls.
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