Target vs. Tar-Zhay

Martha, we were talking earlier about words that we mispronounce on purpose, and we agreed, right, that we both do it.

Right.

And we don’t do it because we’re stupid or we want to irritate other people.

We do it because it’s fun.

Right.

It’s just a way of goofing off with language, which is one of the cool things.

Language can take it.

You know, language can take a lot of fooling around before it breaks.

And I also mentioned on Jason Kaki’s blog there was a long discussion where people used the short column that I wrote as a huge launching point to contribute their own words that they mispronounce.

I highly recommend you look it up.

One of my favorites, and it’s not a word that I mispronounce, or at least I didn’t used to on purpose, but I think I will now.

It’s impossible, rendered as impastable.

Impastable?

Impastable.

Like a bowl of pasta?

Impastable.

I like it.

There’s something cool about it.

It’s got a nice feel to it.

Impastable.

I like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you have any that you mispronounce on purpose?

Oh, impastable.

I mean, that makes me think of people talking about a pigment of their imagination, but that’s not…

Well, what about this?

Do you ever call the department chain Target Target?

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, that’s a big one.

Lots of people do that one.

Yeah, Target and Crochet, at least in the Midwest.

Oh, so right.

There’s a chain of stores in the Midwest called Kroger.

We had those in Missouri, but my brother and I, we called them K-Roger.

Nice.

Well, after Kmart, you know?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And also, you know, there are words that we mispronounce that kind of call back to the mispronunciations that other people make that they don’t know they’re making, like library.

Yep.

Right?

Or chimbley and family.

Family I use all the time.

There’s something really appealing and warm, actually, about the pronunciation family, at least to me.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, in any case, if you’ve got some of this stuff, we’d love to hear about the things that you say wrong on purpose.

The email address is words@waywordradio.org, and the phone number is 1-877-929-9673.