Wind birds and Magnolia beef: One woman’s battle with the English language
My friend Heather is one of the sweetest, kindest, most considerate friends in all the world. I love her. But Lord help her she says some really dumb things.
It’s not that Heather herself is dumb. She’s extremely intelligent.
She’s a educator, for goodness sakes.
She molds the formative minds of Northwest Georgia.
But for whatever reason, she makes so many mistakes when it comes to common words and phrases.
Now I know we all have things we mispronounce. I’ve written many times about my friend Brandy who is famous for saying BOUNCE TO YOU instead of UNBEKNOWNST to you.
But Heather has so many of these little mispronunciations that in our circle of friends they’re known as HEATHERISMS. And we keep a running tally of them. It seems the list keeps growing all the time.
Like I said, Heather is an intelligent woman. She just has a knack for saying things incorrectly and we never let her live it down. And it’s not just one time slip- ups. These are words and phrases Heather says ALL the time because she believes this is how they’re spelled/pronounced.
1. Smortgagebord — She means to say SMORGASBORD. Apparently Heather thinks this is a combination of a Scandinavian meal and a house loan.
2. Hints — When she mean HENCE. This is one Heather writes. For example she’ll text “It was too rainy HINTS we didn’t go for a walk.” This is one of those errors people make because of the way they say the word. They think that’s the way it’s spelled.
3. Truck — When she means to say TREK. As in, they went on a long TRUCK through the forest.
4. Magnolia Beef — She means the Asian dish of MONGOLIAN BEEF. She says this every time she orders take out and every time I correct her.
5. Carnigan — This is how Heather says CARDIGAN.
6. Jake Gillenhoff — Now this one I suppose we can sort of overlook. This is how Heather pronounces the name of the famous actor Jake Gyllenhall. His name is pronounced Jill-en-hall. But Heather thinks it’s Gill-en-hoff.
7. Zing-zing — That’s what Heather calls the popular Bloody Mary mix which in actuality is Zing ZANG.
8. Three sto the wind — You’ll have to use your imagination for this because my editor will no doubt frown on me using a cuss word in my column, but that’s how Heather says the popular phrase THREE SHEETS TO THE WIND. It means drunk. The sheet is the line that controls the sails on a ship. If the line is not secured, the sail flops in the wind, and the ship loses headway and control. If all three sails are loose, the ship is out of control. Heather, however believes that when one is intoxicated, one is three sto the wind.
9. Enduring — When she means to say ENDEARING. They mean totally different things.
10. Deaf — This is a pronunciation issue. This is how Heather pronounces DEATH. This makes for very awkward moments when speaking about those who are hearing impaired. I also have a buddy who can’t say PAMPHLET, instead saying PANTHLET. And he can’t say PHILADELPHIA. He says PHILADELTHIA.
11. Shun Shun Shun — You know how when someone says or does something you don’t approve of, you shake your head and say “shame, shame, shame?” Well Heather thinks its “shun, shun, shun.”
12. Contjus — This one can’t be overlooked and she should be shamed publicly for it. This is how Heather spells CONSCIOUS.
13. Zulu — No, no. Heather isn’t referencing the ethnic group in Southern Africa. She’s means ZILLOW, the online real estate database.
14. Wind bird — She means snow bird. If your grandparents travel from up north to warmer climates in the south during the winter, please know that Heather refers to them as wind birds.
15. Bertha Day — For some reason Heather really enunciates the word BIRTHDAY and it comes out as Bertha Day.
16. Golds of Loot — I know that makes no sense but hear me out. One time Heather was watching the cartoon “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” with her son and she was singing along to the music — music she had obviously heard many times before. She kept saying “Golds of Loot.” I didn’t think that made sense so I asked what she was singing. Since the characters are pirates she said they were singing about hidden treasure. What the characters (and Heather’s child) were actually saying was “GOLD DOUBLOONS,” referring to old Spanish gold coins. But you know Heather. She was unfamiliar with the word doubloons so she just came up with her own lyrics ... Golds of Loot.