So, we were trying to go to sleep last night, my wife and I. We were talking, as we normally do, when Jen let loose one of her famously mispronounced words (she doesn’t think they are… maybe she speaks her own dialect?). JenWords come in two varieties: the emphasis-on-the-wrong-syllable and the mixed-up-first-sound. I don’t even remember what it was last night that go me started… but it made me laugh. Now, I love JenWords. They keep me on my toes, and I think maybe she does it to make sure I’m paying attention, because to miss a JenWord is to miss something beautiful and original.
I must also say that most of these happened while Jen was pregnant, and therefore must be attributed to hormones or something. Otherwise, it’s just an endearing quirk that I hope never goes away. Here are some of my favorites of both types:
emphasis-on-the-wrong-syllable: (phonetically)
- cement: SEE-mint, so it sounds like semen with a t.
- drixoral: dricks-or-ALL, you know, the allergy medicine.
- mercury: I don’t even know how to do this one, just be sure it’s funny.
- syllable: sill-AAAAA-bull – makes me giggle every time.
mixed-up-first-sound:
The wonderful thing about these is that 1) they’re hilarious, and 2) you never know when she’ll do it. The emphasis words are pretty regular, but these are gems!
- french onion: fred onchion – we went through this phase where chopped up potatos + some mix + 400 degree oven = yummy when we first got married. fred onchion potatos was Jen’s suggestion one day. We still bring up good ole Fred whenever we need a laugh.
- great outdoors: bud ortdoseman – Sunday morning shortly after moving to Virginia, she asked if SportsCenter was coming on after that bud ortdoseman show… she meant The Great Outdoors… really, it was funny at the time. Now, Bud and Fred are friends.
- Buddhist Monks: Moodist Bunks – This one was recent, so she can’t use pregnancy as an excuse… eating dinner at my mom’s. I don’t know why we were talking about Buddhism, but there you have it.\
There are others, and I’ll add them if I remember them, but you get the idea.