The Princess of (Mis)Pronounciation

The other day as I was watching some stupid TV (is there any other kind worth watching?) I was sent into a reverie by an Aricept commercial. Which is kind of funny/sad, when you think about it, since Aricept is an Alzheimer's drug -- if I needed the drug, there would probably be no reveries.

I got to thinking about the word Alzheimer's. When I was a child, I used to think that this word was acutally Oldtimer's. As in Oldtimer's Disease. The etymology made sense to me -- it was a disease of the old, after all. And so I happily mispronounced the word until somebody corrected me.

This wasn't the only word with which I did this. I also used to think that suitcase was actually soupcase. The etymology did not make sense to me in this instance, and I was confused. I never saw any Campbell's in there. Who packed soup to go on vacation? Even though it didn't make sense, I went with it, and walked around saying soupcase until one day my mom heard me say it and took pause. She made me repeat myself and got a good chuckle. When she corrected me and explained that people pack suits, not soup, I felt better. Because you just shouldn't pack cans of soup for a vacation.

Then there was hoak chest. It was the thing that sat down at the end of my parents' bed and that was used for storage. It looked to be made of oak, and it was a chest. So it kind of made sense in my small and apparently fevered brain. Luckily, my mom caught me on this one as well and explained that it was actually called a hope chest. Whoops. (Thanks, Mom!)

And lest you think that I only did this with words I heard, allow me to set you straight. As an avid reader, I was burning through books beyond my grade level at an early age. (I love you, Babysitter's Club!!) This also meant that I often read unfamiliar words whose meaning I was able to decipher from context, but that I could not accurately pronounce. Like hors d'oeuvres. I knew that this meant small, snacky food. But I thought it was pronounced horrs du vorrs. (As you can imagine, I would probably excel at French). This mispronunciation issue was remedied when I finally heard somebody else pronounce it correctly and the light bulb went on. I was old enough at that point that if some random person had caught me mispronouncing it so egregiously, I would have had to turn red and run away. And given that I was also an uncoordinated child (all that reading), I probably would have tripped. Which would have embarrassed me so much that I would have had to quit school.

So I think we should all be glad that I am no longer the Princess of (Mis)Pronunciation. The funny thing now is that I get really annoyed when other people mispronounce words. My grandmother, for instance, insists on calling Oprah Winfrey Ofrah. It doesn't matter how many times you try to subtly correct her ("Yes, grandma, that was a good show that OPRAH had the other day.") it doesn't change. Actually, it's a bit endearing, and given that she's in her 90s , I think this is the way it is.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some soup to pack.