Saturday, July 19, 2008

The 1th of Never


My little brother* has always liked playing with words. He sent me a message via my mother on the occasion of my undergrad degree (he wasn't able to attend the ceremony, but he coached her carefully):

Congraduations on your gratulation.


When he studied Spanish in high school, he found the colloquial sayings and figures of speech of the language to be the hardest to learn--he called them "the idiots."

When mom was cooking a particularly deliciously aromatic dinner, he's sniff appreciatively, smile largely, and say, with enthusiasm, "Mmmm, mmmm, that stinks good!"

While we were visiting him in Hawai'i, where he's stationed (have I mentioned lately that we went to Hawai'i?), we were going over the schedule for all the activities we'd planned. "What day is that?" someone asked.

He answered, "The oneth."

So I thought that was amusing. Then, today, Mr. TootsNYC was scanning a 2-page document, and the software was telling him which page was being dealt with; the text on the computer screen said:

"scanning 1th page now."
I didn't think to stick around to see if it would have said, "scanning 2th page now." But I'm guessing it would.

What word do you use when you probably shouldn't?

(Mine is "arrove"--and I first started saying it, I did it without even thinking. Now I sometimes do it on purpose, but mostly do it because I didn't think about it. Drive, drove; arrive, arrove--right?)


*OK, OK, he's not that little. In fact, yes, he is bigger than me. But I'll always be older (and no, you don't need to point out, as my little sister did, "Someday you'll mind!")

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

At you a migraine today?