Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-03-20
This and That
By Charles Z. Trdce,DeU.
CHESTNUT STREET

Dear Sir:
Il found your article last night on
language even more entertaining than
your dissertations on birds Like you
I have somewhere deep in my memory
dozens Of Illustrations of such play
upon words as you mention. but only
three present themselves upon the sur
face at the moment. One. the name
Of our dear-departed Poochie. He was
dubbed Pu-chau in honor of his Chow
ancestry. and Popch-Ow for the I'M
known element, but to him it was all
samee Poochie' SO long as his dear fam
lily called him. Then, just for fun Jane
and sometimes refer to a nuthatch as
nu-thatch. But the classic example
Wilcox submitted a poem entitled NV
Soul Is Lighthouse Keeper to news
paper and it was printed under the title
My Soul Is Light Housekeeper.'
Il wonder if you also find amusement
in the misprints constantly occurring in
the daily papers? My prize one. think,
encountered at least three times al
ready in the store ads is refractory
tables One even had it refractory ex-
tension tables and that did amuse us.
as ours has always been refractory!
'Titan-haired' for itian-haired is con-
stantly cropping up, suggesting queer
pictures to an imaginative mind, and
one health and beauty writer was made
to say I never recommend violet exer-
cises.' have also come across in the
radio news, happily at different times,
references to The Battered Bride and
Fora del Dentino!' The wedding de-
scriptions are fertile field for absurdi-
ties. Recently one bride and all her
attendants wore 'tierras on their heads,
and one, written up in our home town
paper, walked to the altar to the strains
OF the Low and Green wedding march!
This last is fitting companion to the
classic Apollo of the Beveled Ear
Il realize that of these examples
some were typographical errors while
others were of quite different COM
plexion. But all served for a relaxing
laugh which is not to be despised In
these times of stress.
Sincerely, M. J. r."
Newspapermen get a great kick out
OF the mistakes which appear despite all
the effort made to prevent them
The wonder is, not that bulls occur,
but that not more of them happen.
Recently in this column we had oc-
caSlon to refer to the French writer,
Marcel Proust. as "oddest of men and
writer's
1t got in as oldest of men and writ
ers,' which meant exactly nothing at all.
Over the last 20 years there have
been some classics of this type in the
local papers, most of them funny
enough except to those concerned.
Children often misuse words, mostly
by not hearing them correctly in the
first place.
There were the two small girls play
ing at cards. One said, You shovel
EN-, and I'll throw en-"
Children, and sometimes their elders,
will pronounce yacht "yachet," which is
no wonder.
A great many persons have difficulty
with flower names, changing hydrangia
into "hygeraniums," and iris into
'irishes." Poinsettia is commonly pro-
nounced without that "i' before the
final "a"
Gladiolus Is commonly called glad
iola," but there is some excuse for this
one. (The official for both singular and
plural, as adopted by the American
Gladiolus Society, is "gladiolus," with
the accent on the 90"
In the main, we believe that most
persons pronounce the bird names more
accurately than they do flower names,
especially when the latter, as they 30
often do. Come directly from the Latin.