wendy house

I keep

• telling facebook that I don’t need to diet, I’m not fat.
• asking the adverts to stop harrassing me.

For years I’ve been asking, but Facebook ignores me.  Facebook is targeting advertising and I have set my gender to female so I must be in need of getting thinner because no type of thin is going to be thin-enough for an industry that feeds on the image of women as childlike (small and hairless) sexual objects.

Pfffft

It’s a good job I’m stubborn and opinionated otherwise I’d just cry and diet myself into an early grave because happiness cannot be found in a diet and the pressure to diet wont stop because I get thinner.

“are you the princess?” the 67 year old lady asks the 7 year old girl, adding  “I’m a dinosaur”

“no you’re not” even though the girl is already displaying advanced gender conformity, she hasn’t yet refined her agism prejudices…  …she can still spot the difference between dinosaurs and old ladies

“No, not really, but it’s what old people call themselves”  The child makes an accurate observation about aging  “when I grow up my hair wont be blonde anymore” The old bint espouses the popular psuedo-feminist position of  ‘choice freedom’ within the boundaries of legitimate girly behaviours “you can dye your hair any colour that you want”. The mother sighs and adds “she’s a very girlie girl, she’ll only wear dresses and loves pink and purple”

I press my face against the train window watching the beautiful English, Dorset, countryside fly-by – but I can’t escape the conversations of popularist female conformity…

Extensive sounds live Expensive

Example from a BBC news report:

“Our staff treated a five-year-old boy in cardiac arrest but despite extensive efforts they were unable to resuscitate him”

wendy: Norfolk and Norwich

The Canadian’s face instantly flushed red as he smiled, then catuiously asked

Did you just say no fücking nor witch?

When  a large glass of  warm red wine laced with honey  steams in my hand as I sit infront of a flickering open fire listening to the gentle dreaming of my kitties

When I can pay the heating bills and buy food -

Winter is wonderful

Noel sounds like null

Bloodshed pronounced in a received accent sounds like Bristolian pronunciation of Budget

there will be budget so wear a flack jacket

When thinking in a Bristol accent with a hint of NW US phrasing and twang:

compare sounds like cohm pair

leading to typing mistakes, more than once, HahahahHAhaHAHAHahahahaha (the sound of manic laughing fading into the distance)

dusty dry cold  rigid fox deftly holding a long-dead bird in yellowed teeth.

Rustic pane

IT support:   hello,   this is [name] in Salt Lake city   (US Accent)

Wendy: Oh!   I hope its sunny in Salt Lake city

IT Support:   it’s 4am in the morning

Wendy:   Ah,   gosh,   well,   not sunny then,   I’ve got this problem…

[problem fixing conversation and Wendy starts falling asleep then wakes up when]

IT  Support:   Wonkey,   I’m even talking British now,   wonkey

Autumn sounds like awesome when pronounced with an US accent.   Recently  one US friend commented upon returning to the UK:

It’s good to be back.   It’s awesome

The Wendy House kitchen is currently camping under  canvas in the September rain,   ruthless.

Much to my surprise the self-mutilating builders turned-up.   I wasn’t expecting them  because there  have been more false starts than a particularly rusty old  Fiat Panda on a frosty morning.

can lead to fatal misunderstandings if pronounced:

execute if manager

I heard “what do you prefer,   the incest or the songs” (NPR weekend edition)

Phonological similarity:  

insects sounds like incest

email conversation  today,   what can you take onto a plane with you?:

colleague 1:   aren’t you even permitted to take on magazines, newspapers, books/ small books,   pocket books,   folded  newspapers or magazines in pockets?    

colleague 2:   what I heard is that you can take stuff on board with you, you’re just not allowed to take any liquid in your carrion….

Must stop giggling and do some work….

Bass sounds like Becks

Wendy:   “I ordered Bass,   this isn’t Bass”

Server: “Yes it is Bass”   (Becks?)

Wendy: “This is not Bass” (Wow,   American servers ARGUE with their customers!!!!!) “Bass is amber,   this is yellow”

LaCroix: “That is not Bass,   this is Bass” (raises her pint of Bass)

Server takes the pint, returns with a Bass and apologises.   Phew phonological beer-lager disaster avoided.

Tenerife sounds like Tel-Aviv

This can provide exciting, unexpected, vacation opportunities.   Excerpt from the Times

“Michael Moore and Diane Bell from West Yorkshire, booked a holiday to Tenerife but ended up in Tel Aviv. They went to Thailand but did not like it and went to a local travel agent, who misheard them. “I’d never seen Tel Aviv spelt before,” Ms Bell said. “I thought it was what people in Thailand called Tenerife.””

W Miss Heard

Confusion sounds like Confucian

This can produce a phonologically based spelling challenge.   No prizes for guessing who’s recently made that Malapropism.

W Most-Often-Miss-Pelt

This Diner conversation dumbfounded me:

Wendy: “I thought I’d ordered a SPANISH omelette”

Waitress: “I thought you ordered a SWISS CHEESE AND BACON   omelette“

‘Spanish’ sounds like ‘Swiss cheese and bacon’?

I couldn’t hear the similarty.   Later I engaged the waitress in small-talk.    She found my speech very difficult to hear even when I used my best Queen’s English and  diction.   No mumbling.   It reminded me of when I first arrived in the US.    Just listening to people talk had been  suprisingly, physically, tiring.     I gave her a big tip for trying so hard to overcome the difficulties of my poor spoken ‘American’.

W Miss-Understood

I typed

Mail instead of Main

within an email

to a male

I chuckled to myself.    This possibly isn’t amusing for you unless you are  actually  on Planet-Wendy* with me.      No map available to Planet-Wendy.

”cars ‘eee  ain’ begit’n maw carn-tex’    

Regional accent outbreak.   It means ‘context UNPUBLISHABLE’.

*photograph of Planet-Wendy  painting** attached.

** the painting*** actually IS hung on the wall in my garage.  

***I’m open to painting  purchase offers,   make me a bid…   ….I promise not to cry…  

Wendy still-nesting-footnotes

When pronounced with my regional accent 7 sounds  like:

SE’vUUUUURRRRRRRn

The  River Severn  is Britains longest river and local to my formative youth.   It has the 2nd highest tidal rise and fall in the world and helps constrain splushy fraternization between the English and  Welsh.     The name Severn  is published all-over-the-house,   in folklore stories, on road signs,   businesses,   bridges  ”anna loik‘   (regional pronunciation).   The once local ‘Severn Trent’ water authority  was purchased by an US company during the Thatcherite sell-offs of British publicly owned resources.    It now  has research sites on the Columbia River in Tri-Cities, WA.

When pronounced with my regional accent Severn sounds like:

SE’vUUUUURRRRRRRn

This marvellous river is responsible for many numerical spelling errors that I loyally persist to this day.    

7 = Severn

On the positive side:

• None of my Cheques have bounced…       ….yet.      
• To help local USians understand me I can ‘awmows tawk praahpaaaah’        

Wendy Spelling-pronunciation-atrocity-perpetrator

In an English accent,   spoken to a US person…  

‘fries’ sounds like ‘rice’

• whenever I order Fries’ in the works canteen,   the server moves to add some  ’rice’ to my plate.   Even putting the word ‘french’ in front of ‘fries’ fails to solve this problem.   I’m not sure what to do.   Normally  I say ‘No‘ repeat the word ‘fries‘ while pointing to the deep-fryer.

‘Hiya’ sounds like ‘How are you?’

• Which apparently is the phrase that lead to the truncated greeting that I use.    I use  ‘Hiya’ as a verbal greeting with friends and at work.    A persistent personal habit picked up in Northern England in the 1980′s.  
• Using it can be dangerous.  
• In England people reply with a chirpy smile and another ‘hiya’.    My US acquaintences  generally reply by telling me how they are…    often I’m unrepared for the earnest content and detail.  Maybe I should start saying ‘Yo’?
• The greeting is popular for internet mediated communication,   though not quite as popular as the even further truncated ‘hi’

Wendy truncate-and-concatenate-are-wonderful-words