Status Update
Feeling marginally better than yesterday. I think I was due for a crash, and while I'm still technically in it, I'm no longer at the bottom of the shit heap and have started slowly crawling my way back out.
So anyway.
I have kind of a weird discrepancy in my speaking voice. It's a combination of two factors:
a) That I taught myself how to read at 3 years old and have been reading books recommended for children years older than me ever since, and,
b) That I grew up in a strange, alien part of Long Island where people exist who pronounce the word library like "li-berry."
What that basically boils down to is that I didn't have much of a peer group and little social contact with kids on the same intellectual level, snobbish and arrogant jackass that I am. But now that I'm halfway through the whole "we're not really an Ivy League but we pretend that we are so just go with it" college experience, I'm finally in with people who I don't have to feel like I'm the smartest person...anymore. You can tell it's working because that last sentence was extremely awkward to write, and likely incorrect to boot.
Never mind that I knew the difference between my there/their/they're's in preschool (something that I'm horrified to learn full-grown adults still struggle with). What I'm trying to say is that because I didn't have a lot of time with kids sharing my vocabulary level, today I pronounce a shit ton of words wrong.
I know what they mean. I've read them in books since about 7th grade, and I can put them in any sort of context you'd like. The problem is that I pronounce them dead wrong in conversation.
A recent example found me on my phone, bragging to Moms about the recently acquired T.A. position. She congratulated me, and asked if I was getting paid for it. I said,
"I don't know yet, I've heard some people get a stipend but that's usually the guys running the science lab groups."
There was a pause, and then my mother, with a fair degree of laughter in her tone, gently said,
"Actually, honey. It's pronounced stip-end. You said sty-pend."
Writing this down reminded me how I pronounce the "deus" in "deus ex machina" as "Doose."
Yeah. More examples to come.
Also, after a month-long wait, FamilyEducation.net finally answered my e-mail. The original letter about Shylock as a baby name is posted behind a friends-locked entry because I gave out my full name and whatnot, but here's what I got back:
"Response (Kevin) - 03/03/2009 03:35 PM
Hello Allison,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have passed this along
to our editors.
Best regards,
Kevin McGrath
Family Education Network"
Entry hasn't changed yet, but I had to write to the gigantic corporation since they don't have a number for the smaller company that just runs the website, and I imagine there's a lot of merger problems.
Will keep checking back for status updates to see what happens and if the entry gets changed.
So anyway.
I have kind of a weird discrepancy in my speaking voice. It's a combination of two factors:
a) That I taught myself how to read at 3 years old and have been reading books recommended for children years older than me ever since, and,
b) That I grew up in a strange, alien part of Long Island where people exist who pronounce the word library like "li-berry."
What that basically boils down to is that I didn't have much of a peer group and little social contact with kids on the same intellectual level, snobbish and arrogant jackass that I am. But now that I'm halfway through the whole "we're not really an Ivy League but we pretend that we are so just go with it" college experience, I'm finally in with people who I don't have to feel like I'm the smartest person...anymore. You can tell it's working because that last sentence was extremely awkward to write, and likely incorrect to boot.
Never mind that I knew the difference between my there/their/they're's in preschool (something that I'm horrified to learn full-grown adults still struggle with). What I'm trying to say is that because I didn't have a lot of time with kids sharing my vocabulary level, today I pronounce a shit ton of words wrong.
I know what they mean. I've read them in books since about 7th grade, and I can put them in any sort of context you'd like. The problem is that I pronounce them dead wrong in conversation.
A recent example found me on my phone, bragging to Moms about the recently acquired T.A. position. She congratulated me, and asked if I was getting paid for it. I said,
"I don't know yet, I've heard some people get a stipend but that's usually the guys running the science lab groups."
There was a pause, and then my mother, with a fair degree of laughter in her tone, gently said,
"Actually, honey. It's pronounced stip-end. You said sty-pend."
Writing this down reminded me how I pronounce the "deus" in "deus ex machina" as "Doose."
Yeah. More examples to come.
Also, after a month-long wait, FamilyEducation.net finally answered my e-mail. The original letter about Shylock as a baby name is posted behind a friends-locked entry because I gave out my full name and whatnot, but here's what I got back:
"Response (Kevin) - 03/03/2009 03:35 PM
Hello Allison,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have passed this along
to our editors.
Best regards,
Kevin McGrath
Family Education Network"
Entry hasn't changed yet, but I had to write to the gigantic corporation since they don't have a number for the smaller company that just runs the website, and I imagine there's a lot of merger problems.
Will keep checking back for status updates to see what happens and if the entry gets changed.