Susan Bugher <(E-Mail Removed)>:
>
> You could try laying a trap. One of my sisters discovered "momently" and
> "casually" dropped it into a conversation. Mother automatically said
> "momentarily" - which gave my sister a chance to correct *mother* - the
> *only* such triumph known to man. . .
I envy your sister her triumphant moment. I've never been given an
opportunity quite like that one. Closest I ever got was a mild revenge.
My mother was Southern born, and dropped her accent completely within
her first year of Univerity (Berkeley, in the 60's, Southerners were
subjected to a lot of backlash criticism, and ridicule). The exception
with the accent was just a couple of words. One of them is "sill" (as
in window sill). I've had occasion to pin her in a corner, when her
friends were around, and when she's a little vulnerable after a couple
of cocktails. "Repeat after me, Mom. Come on, say it after me: sill."
And, no matter how hard she tries, it's always impossible for her to
enunciate those several lodged words in any way but with her original
South. accent. The fact that the inability causes her so much embarrassment
makes it irresistable for me to get the dig in at the one place I can.
> My mother spoke French like a native, several other languages too. . .
> Unfortunately it's too late to sic my mom on your mom. . .
Ah, too bad. Especially since I'm sure your mom would win. Mine lived
over in Germany for a good number of years (cumulative ~15) during her
career. While there, she took classes in German, paid for by her employer.
Yet, the reports are that throughout all those years she refused to utter
one word of German in public. (Due to fear of coming of like a klutz, and
thereby herself up to the kind of teasing/criticism that she preferred to
dole out to others.)
You can guess, this is someone who won't let me come anywhere near to
giving her computer lessons. She uses AOL, and MSN, and sends me html
emails. I believe she does that, after all my protests, strictly to
torture me. So I write her back with lots of sentence fragments, and
a heavy load of subject-verb mismatches.
--
Karen S.