Language Fails

This is going to be a short post, but today at lunch we all cracked up at stories about people mishearing words of cliches or lyrics to songs.  Each person had a story about a "language fail," and it got me thinking about how we form our relationships with language.  Some people are very into words-- how they sound, what they mean, what they suggest.  I think I might be one of those people-- a total word dork-- and not just in terms of studying etymology.  I like to think about the connotations of words and why we use them the way we do.  I have a whole book of common phrases and where they came from (Anyone want to know the story of where "rule of thumb" came from?  It's bad-- it's about a guy beating people...)  I think a lot too about how hard the English language must be to learn, especially for kids in the ELL program.  It's gotta be challenging to memorize that the "ough" sound in "through," "rough," and "bough" is pronounced differently in each case.  And I ponder what Mabel must be thinking when she hears us talk.  I'm sure she is formulating lots of language in her little brain right now, but do babies think most of what we say is gibberish, even once they start learning context and association?  Someone in my period 8 class said that her Vietnamese friend told her she thought spoken English sounded like a dog barking.  Yet, we talk and talk-- never realizing how FAST and maybe even DULL our words can sound to others.

It's easy, with such an expansive language as English, to mess things up as we are learning.  We've got more cliches than anyone could count, and lots of idioms too (remember Amelia Bedelia, who didn't get metaphors/ allusions?  When she was told to draw the drapes, she took out a crayon and paper).  Yet, sometimes, even without thinking, we just learn said idioms and start using them.  We might not even know what they mean (unless you've got that handy book I was talking about above :)).  I started thinking about the language fails I was responsible for as a kid.  Here are a few:

1. I thought "blind drive" meant the person who lived at the house was blind, so please watch out.

2. I thought a person referred to as (or as not) a Rhodes Scholar was a "road scholar," meaning he/ she was so smart that he/she had traveled a long academic road, and was covering a long road of knowledge... you know, to eventually end up at Harvard or something.  On the road to success!

3. I thought the word primadonna was "pre- Madonna," meaning the person was a young version of the celeb.  Like, she's headed to be a real rich, and maybe famous, but snotty *itch.  Or she liked to show off her bod or something.  Regardless, I thought of Madge.

4. I thought the phrase zero due at signing on those car commercials was "zero 'do it!' signing," alluding to a system whereby if you just "did it!" on the spot (the car purchase) you wouldn't have to pay anything at the signing.  Zero "do it RIGHT NOW!" signing!!!!

I know I've had more, and I'm excited to think more about them (yup, dorking it up).  What language fails (ok, maybe that's harsh- "language snafus"??) have you heard or executed? :)