Childhood Language Misunderstandings

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Think back to when you were a child. Specifically, that point in your life where you knew just enough of your native language to get yourself really confused.

Last year.

Now stick with me, Grant.

Okay, listening.

I can remember when I was young hearing people talk on television about guerrilla fighters. And then seeing them on the screen and thinking, wait, they don’t look so hairy. In fact, they look like people. What gives?

And I have a friend who said that when she first heard about cat burglars, she was afraid they were going to climb through her window and take her cat and nothing else. And it got me to thinking about how as adults we take for granted that words have multiple meanings and that homophones don’t necessarily mean the same thing.

But when you’re of a certain age, it can really put some crazy images into your head. You know, and the reverse is also true. Having a three-year-old growing up in my house, I find that he is so amazed that words have more than one meaning. So many of the childhood jokes and riddles fall back on double meanings, right? And he loves this stuff.

And even more interesting, he is not bound by the current meaning of a word. He, for example, has a stuffed bear he calls car and a stuffed white beluga whale he calls tree because as far as he’s concerned that’s allowed. You can do that. You can call a bear car and you can call a whale tree. And so that’s part of the formula, right? Anyway.

So what words confused you when you were still a child? Give us a call and talk about it. 1-877-929-9673.

You can call us about that or any other matter involving language or you can email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.