So I was just writing an email to some long lost somebody or something and was trying to explain that I was almost done with culinary school, but not completely. And I typed a phrase that I have said probably a bajillion times in my life, and hopefully have never written before: "For all intensive purposes."
Staring at it, I had that sinking, sneaking-up-on-you-from-the-back feeling that this phrase was not right, because it made no sense, but also that everyone else knew that it was not right. And that I had been using it with out ever questioning what it might mean. And that I was 31 now, so should have already discovered this remnant of growing up in a state where we pronounce "roof" as if it was the sound a dog makes, and ten and tin as if they were homonyms.
So just fyi, peeps:
For all intents and purposes, childhood will make a fool of us all.
KThxBai Midwest! Smooches!
24 July 2008
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4 comments:
Just as long as you don't go around saying that you want to sign your "John Henry" as they say in Ohio. The irony gives me a serious ulcer and the excrutiating sadness is none of them realizes the mistake. I actually screamed at a couple of people on bad, bad days.
Wow. Just the title of this entry was enough to make me home in on it (not hone in on it). Not sure where you're from, but one of the very few vestiges of my old deep-south accent that's left is the tendency to rhyme "-en" with "-in". In the south, that always led to such necessary clarifications as "ink pen" and "straight pin" so we'd know which one you were talking about.
I only recently learned that it was "for all intents and purposes" and not "for all intensive purposes" as I continually heard it as a child repeated by adults around me. So it can't be midwest... maybe it's farmer hick.
At least you figured it out before age 40.
Of course "ten" and "tin" are pronounced the same! Although I have quit saying "musim" for "museum" (mew-zee-um). Sigh.
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