Monday, May 14, 2007

On Choirpractors and Homopaths

Every time I speak with my father, I am reminded of the bizarre way in which people from my part of Ontario speak. I mentioned that in a post entitled Dropping the Dialect. In that post, I listed a few key phrases that my father uses. Since his diagnosis with prostate cancer a few years back, he has been seeing a homeopath. He believes that this treatment has helped, and I thinks that's great, even though I am not sure that the stinky tea actually does anything. After all of this time, my father (and my sister, for that matter) are unable to pronounce homeopath.

It is pronounced thusly: 'hO-mE-&-"path

In other words, is has four syllables, including a vowel after hom and before opath. My dad (and sister) continue to say homopath. I suppose that there is a very real possibility that my father is seeing some sort of practitioner with the name homopath, but what kind of medicine or pseudo-medicine this person would dispense is too bizarre to even contemplate so early in the day. Anyway, for some reason, I haven't summoned the courage to tell him that his pronunciation is off.

And this reminds me that my grandmother says sam'ich instead of sandwich. She also cannot say chiropractor. She says choirpractor, which I gather is someone who dispenses chiropractic medicine to large groups of singers.

Anyway, today is conference week. I am at a conference as I type, and will be again tomorrow, when I am presenting with two colleagues. Then, I will be attending another conference from Wednesday to Friday, so you may not hear much from me after today.

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5 comments:

tshsmom said...

My Dad and I used to deliberately mispronounce words, just to annoy my asshole grandfather.

Anonymous said...

My Gran puts Rs is A sounds. War]shington, wa[r]shing some dishes. Annoying.

The one that drives me the most crazy, though, is people pronouncing the G in "ing". Sing-Ger. Trying-Ge. Etc.

Drives me crazy. My ex-father-in-law is from Burming-gham, England... and it seemed an accent thing. Spending time in the Midlands made my ears bleed.

tweetey30 said...

I have to admit I didnt know the right word. But I know hubby and I make fun of words. Well have fun at your conferences and catch you later.

Liz said...

This post had me laughing out loud. A former neighbor and dear friend used to say MUSK-a-cioli instead of mostaccioli. I alays wondered what that would be: pasta made from deer genitals?

Jay said...

We are much less tactful in my family. My grandmother, who is bilingual in the way that both her languages suck, gets laughed at constantly.