And the Truth Shall Set You Free

...Arse Gropper ...

...is how my daughter pronounces 'grasshopper'. You may have seen others on the blog ... 'spagolognaise' is obvious, but Jess still pronounces 'dressing gown' as 'abbiguyon'. It is part of the Cloake patoir now. Jess still has trouble with the letter 'l', so '...and one for the yittle boy who yives down the yane' is commonplace.

What falls out of the mouth of my babes and sucklings got me a'thinkun yesterday. The mispronouned words are funny - but the clearly pronounced publically uttered (albeit innocent) questions are less of a happy matter for Mrs Acular and me.

"Daddy, why is that yady fat?", stated less than three feet away from the hapless (if, admittedly morbidly obese) lady, in an empty cafeteria. 

"Is that cereal bar nice?", retorted a deeply embarrassed Daddy, now exhibiting a blush hotter and redder than the surface of the sun.

"But daddy, the yady is fat" ... and so on, until we left (the lovely woman didn't betray so much as a flicker)

I thought this through, and it reminded me of a conversation that I had had many years ago in one of my London carpet emporia. A customer and I had come to the end of a rather nasty 'spat', we had both raised our voices, we both swore at the other, we had finger-pointed, then we concluded with something of a friendly and mutually respecting epilogue (once we had thrashed out the minor details). We later commented how refreshing it had been to be honest with one another, and how we ought to have a day in the year where we could have an amnesty on the truth - that is to say, say it like it is, honestly. I grant you that one us had called the other 'a f*cking animal' and the other 'a vile slug' - though we did giggle about that afterwards.

So, an amnesty on the truth. If that day had been yesterday, I would have been compelled to make comments about excessive consumptions of calorific content, a glandular matter perhaps, sizeable bones even, or more particularly a lethargic metabolic temperament. That would be why, my daughters two, 'the yady is indeed fat'.

Wider issue here - if we follow this to its logical conclusion, it is clear how much 'half-truth white-lie semantic prestidigitation' we surround ourselves in. The politically correct world is largely one of fibbing-to-protect. Can you imagine a ministry where the vicah could only be truly and painfully honest? I shudder to think ....

(Thanks to Reverendfun for the cartoon)