TALKING THE TALK

“And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee.” (Matthew 26:73)

That verse is from “King James English” of hundreds of years ago; the last part would best be understood as, “your speech betrays you”, or “the way you talk betrays where you are from”.

When I was in Bible College, my father had sent me a “letter” on cassette tape. My friend Ed Duddy, upon hearing the tape burst out laughing and said, “HE talks FUNNY!!” In the Missouri Ozarks, my father’s harsh Boston accent DID sound funny!

For some reason, I’m thinking of many of the unusual speech patterns and pronunciations that some people have. I heard a nice, well educated guy speaking this week, who was using the word, “vulnerable”, but he kept pronouncing it, “vunnerable”. I hear that a lot: “vunnerable”. Maybe people are thinking of the word “venerable”, but there’s no such word as “vunnerable”. Indeed, when they use the word “vunnerable” they put themselves in a VULNERABLE position!

Some people can’t say “specific”. I knew a woman many years ago who always pronounced “specific” as “pacific”. She’d say, “I have a pacific proposal to make.” “Pacific” means “peaceful”. I think it was Balboa who named the Pacific ocean, and boy did HE choose the wrong name! (That’s kind of like the guy who named a huge ice island, “Greenland”!)

My mother could NOT say the word ,“breakfast”. She always pronounced it, “Brikefust”, with the emphasis on BRIKE. She’d ask, “What do you want for your BRIKE-fust?” Her Dad was a French Canadian and her Mom was a Scottish Canadian. I wonder if one of THEM mispronounced “breakfast” and so it just stuck with her. My father could not say the word “film”. He always pronounced it as “fill - um”. Dad also could not pronounce “theater”. He always said, “thee-ETTA”. “Who wants to go to a thee-ETTA and see a fill - um?” he’d ask. Each of his parents spoke French as their first language, and I also wonder if they mispronounced “film” and “theater” and he just picked the habit up.

I know a guy who often speaks against what he calls, “homo sex YO ality”. He also uses the word “judge-a-mental.”
“I don’t mean to be judge-a-mental, but I’m against homo sex YO ality!” he will boldly proclaim.
My son and I can’t stand when people mispronounce the word “coupon”. Many people say “Q - pon” instead of “KOO - pon”. If we had our way, you’d need a special coupon to use the word “Q - pon”!

There ARE some word combinations which are just plain difficult for some of us to pronounce. For instance, I have difficulty saying the phrase, “special message”. In preaching, sometimes I’ve stood up in the pulpit and attempted to announce, “I have a special message to give today,” except it comes out something like, “I have a SCHPESSSHHHUULLLMEHSHSCHHUGE to deliver” and I really sound like I have some kind of mental deficiency. I actually now AVOID the phrase “special message” because I seem to have such a tough time pronouncing it! Similarly, this week, a friend was telling me about a new “Bed & Breakfast” which he kept calling a “Bread and Breakfast”. Even though he kept knowing he was saying “Bread and Breakfast”, he’d still keep correcting it and he’d say “Bread and Breakfast”! It came out something like, “Did you know (so-in-so) is opening up a new Bread and Breakfast?....I mean a Bread and Breakfast...and it’s a great opportunity to spend a couple of days at a Bread and Breakfast...”

I know Pat Robertson is a controversial televangelist and most people either love him or hate him, but whichever it is, something that cracked me up about 25 years ago is when he had a whole pile of prayer requests on a table during his 700 Club broadcast. Along with co-host Ben Kinchloe, Pat earnestly began praying aloud for the prayer requests. I am sure Pat INTENDED to say, “Father, we know nothing is impossible for you...”
Instead, Pat began, “Father, we know NOTHING is possible for you!”
He continued on praying, not realizing what he’d said!

Here in New England we find it strange the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, pronounces Massachusetts as “Mass -a - TOO - sets”. It’s not unique to him. Most people in the southeastern United States say, “Mass -a - TOO - sets”. But we drive people in the Pacific Northwest crazy when we say, “Ore-a-GONE”. Ore-a-GONE? Where did it go? They say, “OreGUN”.

We say “MissourEEE”; some below the Mason-Dixon line say, “Missour-AH”.
Of course, it actually ends with the letter “i”.

My friend Martin from Kentucky says I “talk Yankee”. I say he “talks Hillbilly”.

I guess writing this has made me very “vunerable”!