This Is Not A
BLOG!
Date: 05/04/14
Attack Of The What!?
Do you have the same problem with some words as I do?
To be specific, words which you see - even frequently - where you automatically misread them.
For example, the legendary Denis Norden used to claim that whenever he saw the word 'mishap', it immediately came out in his mind's mouth as rhyming with 'bishop'.
I always have problems with 'Croat' (which I always hear in my head as rhyming with 'stoat') and 'inchoate', which forever emerges as 'inch oat'.
I've just discovered another tormentor, and the fault lies with the fact that - although I am only fluent in two languages (three, if you count Profane) - I have a useful working knowledge of how a number of other languages should look or sound.
There is one of them there new-fangled computer games out. It's called Titanfall. Every - but every - time I see it in print, I immediately think that it's a German word. The 'Tit' part is obvious enough, but I have just gone to my German-English dictionary and discovered that, yes indeed, 'Anfall' is a proper, honest-to-goodness German word. Worse still, it actually means 'an attack'. I can now imagine some poor sod of a height-impaired Ruhritanian who has had too close a dance with a large Fräulein rubbing his sore ears and uttering mournfully, "Ich habe ein Titanfall!".
(And, in case there are any multi-lingual pedants reading, yes I know that this compound word would not be valid in German because their word for 'boob' is 'Titte', thus making the correct form something like 'Ein Tittenanfall'. Don't spoil the bloody joke, eh?)
