[Ads-l] Children's speech errors; 3 examples

[Andy Bach]

> There is an article entitled "The World According to Student Bloopers"
which has been around for years.  It is available at
     https://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~norman/Jokes-file/StudentBloopers.htm

which says:
I have pasted together the following "history" of the world from
certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the
United States, from eight grade through college level.

and includes:
A myth is a female moth.

I would've sworn Groucho used that line (and would've hazarded "Monkey
Business") but the QI says:

In September 1925 the column “Ed Wynn’s Question Box: He Knows All – He
Sees All” printed several interrogatives with a comic edge. Here are three
of them [EWGT]:

Do you know that a female “moth” is called a “myth

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/10/grants-tomb/

So, maybe Ed was his student, or the student was putting them on or

On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 12:48 AM James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com>
wrote:

> On Sat Sep 8 11:11:44 EDT 2018 Cohen, Gerald Leonard gcohen at MST.EDU
> wrote:
>
> <quote> For some time I've been collecting examples of children's
> misinterpretations of words or phrases whose meaning are
> beyond  their comprehension. One example from the Pledge
> of Allegiance:  "for livercheese and jello for all" (with liberty
> and justice for all).
> <snip>
>    If anyone has any additional examples of such misinterpretations in
> children's speech, I'd of course welcome receiving them.<end quote>
>
> There is an article entitled "The World According to Student Bloopers"
> which has been around for years.  It is available at
>      https://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~norman/Jokes-file/StudentBloopers.htm
> or by Googling on "student bloopers".
>
> Here are some misinterprations from my own childhood:
>
> "next store" for "next door" (this has been documented in ADS-L)
>
> "the safternoon" for "this afternoon"
>
> "Dayton nut bread" for "date and nut bread"
>
> from around first grade "geranium bomb" for "atomic bomb"
>
> I saw some cars from the Nickel Plate Railroad on the Baxter Avenue
> viaduct (in my home town of Louisville KY) and decided that structure was
> the "penny-duct"
>
> in Louisville's Cherokee Park there is an area known as "Big Rock".  For
> years I thought the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain" should be interpreted as
> "(big rock) (candy mountain)"
>
> Also in Cherokee Park there is the pavilion at Hogan's Fountain which I
> renamed "the boarding house at Grogan's Water Faucet"
>
> I never came up with "Jose can you see" or "Hosea can you see" but I
> thought the Star-Spangled Banner was addressed to a man named "Say"
>
> The fourth stanza of "My Country "Tis of Thee" I heard as "Our fathers'
> God to Thee/Arthur of Liberty"
>
> "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" I heard as "Born on a mountaintop in
> Tennessee/Realest state in the land of the free".  I did not make the
> transistion to "real estate in the land of the free".
>
> my first attempt at etymology was to decide "substitute [teacher]" meant
> "underteacher" from "sub" ("under") and "tute" ("tutor")
>
> I read about St. Elmo's fire and the text said it was originally named
> after a St. Erasmus (?).  The text then read "Usage changed the name to St.
> Elmo".  For the longest time I wondered about this Mr. Usage who went
> around changing names.
>
> My son when he was nursery-school age decided that the appliance sitting
> next to the dryer necessarily had to be the "wetter"
>
> - Jim Landau
>
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________________________
> Netscape.  Just the Net You Need.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>


-- 

a

Andy Bach,
afbach at gmail.com
608 658-1890 cell
608 261-5738 wk

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org