Words

Rusty's junk this week starts off with a kid calling his belly button his nabel.

It reminded me of all the things that were pronounced differently when I was younger. Nabel was one of them. Also chimbly. And liberry. Basketti. Bobbed war. Dreckly.

Mrs. Hughes, who taught me eighth grade math, had a couple of good East Texanisms. She pronounced area as "ay-ree". We all knew that area was pronounced "a-re-uh" normally, but we assumed the word in math was pronounced "ay-ree" until a substitute teacher nearly got hysterical and corrected us. Mrs. Hughes also pronounced carat "carry-ut", and again, we figured that was the mathematical way of talking. I think it was Ruth Carmichael's mother who set us straight.

By the way, Mrs., of course, was pronounced Miz.