This doesn’t have enough vinegar in it to deserve a pitting, but I just needed something addressed.
There is a word. It’s a word like any other. For some reason, middle-aged women that call me cannot say this word. They must spell it, and they do so without a trace of shame. Is there some magic spell on these ladies that prohibits them from saying this word, whether it is part of their street name, city or other piece of information? I cannot say. All I can say is that it is strange. Very strange.
The word is seminole.
And no, it’s not like that one phone call I got from the man who would not say “666” but instead had to say “6, 6, and then another of those.”. That was a one time thing. (So far.) This is not.
It doesn’t make me mad, really. It just weirds me out that they can’t say it. And if I say it back to them, (which I do! It’s fun!), it makes them uncomfortable.
Oooo! I have another one too. The people that go out of their way to spell the “cox” in cox.com email addresses. I got it, people. It sounds dirty! giggle
Is there something wrong with me for thinking that those examples are ridiculous?
Oops, I said “ri-dic-ulous”. Let me spell it out for you.
Are they perhaps uncomfortable because it sounds like it ought to be followed by “vesicle?” Or because it contains something that sounds like “semen?”
It’s not like the word “seminal” isn’t used outside the context of the male organ, so I don’t see why “seminole” – which is a different subject anyway – would make people squirm.
Makes me wonder what they do when they have to refer to bouncy spherical objects in the plural…
I don’t know; some words just have associations that some people find awkward or embarrassing; ‘gay’ is one that causes a lot of people pause when they encounter it in, say, children’s verse written in the 1950s.
Anyway, if anyone wants me, I shall be in the vestibule.
My personal pet peeve is when people have to read me a long string of numbers and letters and they read them really fast with very little distiction. Use the military alphabet or just words that start with that letter but please try to be as clear as possible! The only thing worse was the woman who started reading me her number, “1-3-b as in boy-j as in joy-t as in toy-5-4…” :eek:
Lord, that’s even worse! I guess I was hoping that people weren’t that uptight that they couldn’t even say a similar word, but that rather you had misspelled seminal!!
Are you sure? Or have they had too many packages lost because the packages got addressed “Seminal Avenue” instead of “Seminole Avenue” and they’re sick of it?
The answer to “And what’s your last name?” for me is to spell it. I don’t even bother saying it anymore. It’s going into a form and if I want a hope of getting it right, I’m going to need to spell it eventually - so why not start with the spelling? The same with the street I live on. “1-2-3-M-A-I-N Street” (not my real address).
If they’re saying it without hesitation or shame - that’s my first guess.
Both my mother and grandmother refused to speak the word “Lesbos” when I was going there a few years ago. One of them found out the other name for the island - Mytilene - just so they wouldn’t have to say Lesbos.
I’m not vehemently disagreeing with the Seminole/Seminal theory, but I do have to agree with amarinth to an extent. I lived for a number of years on Hill ‘n’ Dale Road. Not that mysterious or stunning, you say? Well, tell that to people who had to take my address.
“Hillendale Road?”
“No – Hill ‘n’ Dale. With an ‘n’ in the middle.”
Silence
“Like the ‘n’ in Rock ‘n’ roll, you know.”
Silence
“H-i-l-l space-hyphen-Capital-N-hyphen-Capital D-a-l-e.”
Don’t even think about asking me if I tried to give them the apostrophe-n-apostrophe variation (which is the correct one). Their little heads exploded.
But even with all that spelling, I still got every (wrong) permutation possible. When forms were filled out, and there they had my address right in front of them, they still got it wrong – I got many items addressed to Hill North Dale Road. :rolleyes:
Yeah, I’m betting they just got tired of having their addresses misspelled. I do something similar with my last name, since no one ever hears it right.
You most likely know it as Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me.
Me, I can’t say the word “panties”. Luckily it doesn’t show up in addresses too often.
And I have to spell out my first and last names, one for its less common spelling and the other because somehow it confounds people. I do have to say S as in Sam and L as in Larry because somehow my pronunciation is not up to snuff.
I tend to avoid saying just plain “balls” in a sentence. Like if I want to say, “My dog loves chasing balls” I’ll change it to, “My dog loves chasing tennis balls”. Not like either of those sentences could be misconstrued. I’m just more comfortable with the second - maybe it’s leftover training from junior high.
That’s what I would think too, but it’s totally different from that exasperated “let me spell it for you b/c you’ll just get it wrong” that I get from people from other strangely named, but not suggestive, places. This is a hesitation for that word and that word only, and then they continue on as normal, spelling as needed. And it sounds the same when they spell “cox”. Which they do almost every time.
