Words

Anybody who has spent any time around me knows that I love words and the use of words. It's also true that I find great amusement in the misuse of words.

Over the years, bosses, preachers, and tv announcers have provided many opportunities for an unexpected grin.

After sitting through a seemingly endless meeting of negotiations, I enjoyed hearing my boss say, "Now that we've got the basic tenements established, we can begin to flush out the skeleton." The best part was that he uttered these malapropisms with a straight face and utter unawarenes. It almost made the hours locked up in that conference room worthwhile.

I once had a girlfriend who described her mistakes as "fox paws". . . of course, she meant faux pas. She was also fond of saying that something had become a mute point. (If only that had been true!)

My family has always enjoyed spoonerisms. We frequently talk about something happening in one swell foop, and we apologize for getting our tangs tungled.

When I was a teenager, my dad went through a long period of enjoying this sort of word play. He liked to observe that his favorite singer was Boney Tennett. Shoes and socks became sues and shocks. Salt and pepper because palt and sepper. He drove us crazy with his mangling of words until he finally came out with some accidentally inappropriate phrases and embarrassed himself out of the spoonerism habit.

What finally stopped him? He mangled the phrase "tool kit" in front of the whole family.