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he pronounced the p


sweet-tart raspberries

 I love words and I’m mad about raspberries.  I know it seems like a really odd connection to make.  What in the world do thorny canes that ramble everywhere, growing blissful rosy, I’m-in-heaven berries have to do with words; made up of letters, syllables and sounds?  Uh, nothing except a very sweet memory.

he pronounced the p

There are many words in our language that have extra letters stuffed in; a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that actually belong somewhere else.  These spare jots have no voice, they don’t make a peep.   And what’s more, there are oodles of words like ... 

know - crumbs - wednesday 
champagne - island - gourmet - raspberries

Why we do this is a conundrum.  I don’t get it.  Why not just spell everything phonetically?  Life would be easier and we wouldn’t make language faux pas – there’s two more silent letter words.

From time to time, those quirky pronunciations become very endearing to us; the way kiddos say “Gamma” or “b’scetti.”  These captivating little vocal variances aren’t limited to kids.  We, as big people have our own idiosyncrasy.

raz-berre  or  rasp-berre

Returning to raspberries…I can’t think of why this came to mind, possibly a recipe or having seen bare root canes at the market – that’s not the important part – I remembered.

Last spring I had more than one chat with my daddy-in-law about raspberry canes being planted; replacing the regular garden items.  We discussed how they should be stuck in the ground, the amount of sunshine and how he’d need to make sure on the amount of water.  Of course, we wondered whether he’d get any of the delectable melt-in-your-mouth fruit that first year.  We spoke of jam and tarts and warm handfuls picked right off the vine.

As much as I adore these delicate, sweet-sour nuggets that taste of summer, I hang onto the way my father-in-law pronounced raspberries – he pronounced the “p”.  He also had a few other unique ways of saying words, but for today I’ll remember the raspberries.  What about you?

Holding onto verbal variances…

Missy


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