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Subject:Re: homophones From:Kim Ballard <ballardk -at- MACE -dot- CC -dot- PURDUE -dot- EDU> Date:Thu, 27 Jan 1994 07:32:38 EST
Deborah Adair' writes in an earlier message
> If you don't know where a phrase originated, it makes just as much
> sense to you mangled-you understand the popular meaning, as do most of the
> people you're speaking/writing to. Communication still happens.
I'll use a snippet of Deborah's phrase to move to a different kind of
mangling. My mom, whose from Denmark, was originally bilingual (Danish
and German were both spoken in her home and community) and learned
British English and a couple of other Scandanavian languages in school. But
she struggled with some American words and simply used descriptions which my
siblings and I all accepted and use. Once in a very public place, I
asked if a room had a working plug-in-place (I needed to use overheads in a
presentation). People understood me, but I also learned that this was
a pretty unusual term for them and that others call the plug-in-place
'outlet.'
--
Kim Ballard
Purdue University
ballardk -at- mace -dot- cc -dot- purdue -dot- edu
