16 January 2005

To dream the impossible dream.

Oh, pshaw. According to the dictionary - and David - this word is pronounced "shô." But according to me; many other women who read girl's lit, like "Little Women" and the Little House books as girls; and all the people I've infected with my choice, it's "puh-shah." Sally says that she said "p-shaw" until her mother corrected her. David told me that he believes that eventually I will pronounce it the way he and the dictionary do. So let's compare his potential eye rolling to my many years of habit -- does anyone really think I'm going to change the way I say it? How about a show of hands?

And David believes that I'm going to stop referring to Venn diagrams and start saying things like "a little exercise in set theory." Oh definitely. The only thing I remember from junior high school math is going to be jettisoned in favor of what is probably a more accurate but far less fun phrase like "a little exercise in set theory."

And now he's threatening to take away my computer privledges at his house. I'm living on the edge here, but my Devoted Readers deserve the truth.

Reporting from deep inside the brutal and repressive David regime.......

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ah, but my dictionary (Webster's 3rd New Int'l, C. 1976) gives as the first listing "any of various sounds or successions of sounds expressing the emotions listed in the definitions, among them sho". I learned to pronounce it the same way you did; wanna show David my dictionary, which supports our pronunciation?

Maureen