Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Adventures in spelling

Robert is learning to spell and sound words out both in reading and writing them, and sometimes, as you know, the English language doesn't always make much sense. Robert recently came back with a homework sentence that even he couldn't translate for us, something like, "can yous a bot." (It was "use a boat.")

Today, however, he seemed to have no problem remembering or reading what he wrote, while Cate needed help. As she related it to me tonight:

Cate: "I think he was insulted that I didn't understand one of his words the first time. G-r-i-a-backwards p-s-s"

Patrick thinks for a second, then says, "grapes?"

Cate: "Fine!" And she mock storms out of the house. (No, not really angry.)

Sometimes when he asks if he's spelled a word correctly and he hasn't, he'll say, "Did I forget a silent e? I never know where it goes. It's silent!" He throws up his hands and everything.

But all this talk of sounding out makes me think I should come clean on this infamous pair of mispronunciations from when we lived on Long Island. (Because if I don't, Mom will. Or Neil might backstab me like he did in the comments this morning.)

Undoubtedly, Mom told me to sound the word out, but it didn't quite work -- not when the word is "rough." So for me, it was the "ROO-guh-huh and windy sea."

I tried to google this phrase and find the book it was from, but came up empty. I must not be remembering it right.

The other one, of course, is "stomach," which I pronounced "stow-MOTCH."

Well, how would you pronounce these words?

8 comments:

Neil said...

You'll be happy to know that row-ooh-guh-huh was the first thing I thought of, before you even mentioned it. I had forgotten about stow-match - so there. Mom wouldn't have though. Though she probably would have thought it was a story about me instead.
More Baby 365 up today. This is much harder when I'm at work all day.

Neil said...

BTW, loving the frequent updates.

Da said...

Let me underline Neil's comment--The frequent updates are great!! You do, of course, have a lot of material, and good material; nonetheless, it makes for a good day here in the hinterlands when we can share in the kids'growing up from afar.

-Da

The Coleman Family said...

Thanks for the reminder -- I went looking for 365 last night but couldn't find the right e-mail. Going to add it to the blogroll. :)

The Coleman Family said...

A little context goes a long way... the "grapes" sentence was accompanied by a picture of a ladybug, caterpillar and some flowers. That threw me off a bit. -Cate

nonna said...

OK, mom knows all! The book was "One, Two, Three Going to Sea." I do not remember Neil mispronouncing any words but that was probably because his big brother did all the talking!
Amelia visited Mother Bear today and she was cuter than all the bears!

Ryan said...

St. Thomas the Impossible.

Ryan said...

And "One, Two, Three, Going to Sea"
http://www.amazon.com/One-Two-Three-Going-Sea/dp/0590026054