I once read a short story, written in the first person, by an author who suffered from a rather strange speech impediment. What she heard herself saying and what she actually said were two different things. To illustrate, I quote (though not verbatim): Chancing upon her husband and young son in the middle of an argument that was going nowhere she said – or thought she said – “Stop this petty bickering!”. What they heard was, “Stop this Betty Pickering!” They promptly turned to her and said, “Who’s Betty Pickering? And why do you want her stopped?”
Well, this kind of mix up is rather uncommon in speech but very common with the keyboard. Fingers have a will of their own and very often letters are transposed or omitted with quite amazing results. One student writing about the joys of Facebook kept repeating about how wonderful it was to get in touch with his fiends (yes, spell-check did prompt me to change it!). Considering what the younger generation can get up to, and this particular student’s potential for mischief, I thought his choice was most apt and certainly descriptive!
More recently, I needed to send a message regarding a colleague and hit send before I realised that I had spelt her name as ‘Perker’ (once again, spell check popped up most helpfully!) instead of ‘Parker’. Considering that she is a real perk-me-up, perhaps this was a Freudian slip of the finger? Well, Leila, if you are reading this blog, you know that you have been featured!
Many are the anecdotes associated with mishaps in the use of English and no one had a better collection than the Reader’s Digest which published excerpts in the available space after an article. How many of you remember ‘Pardon, your slip’s showing’? Yes, I can feel the smiles.
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