Hi Steven,

Just like taking a wiz!  I tell my kids to pick up their rooms or pick up the yard, meaning to clean it up.  One of my sons always says "I'm strong but I don't think I could PICK UP the backyard!"  Ha.  Here's a saying..."He needs a preventive smack!"

Hi Tonya,

It doesnt matter what I say, my kids make fun of the little east-coast accent I still have sometimes in words like beautiful, I say beauty-full, pronouncing the middle like a long E...they don't do that in the midwest here.  And the word donkey, the east coast says dunkey.  My kids think I'm a constant source of accent amusement.

Memorial Day weekend was coming up, and the nursery school teacher took the opportunity to tell her class about patriotism.

"We live in a great country," she said. "One of the things we should be happy is that, in this country, we are all free."

Tiny Little Johnny came walking up to her from the back of the room. He stood with his hands on his hips and said. . .

"I'm not free. I'm four."

That's too bad, Sheryl!

I had the opposite, well both my parents have their little speaking idiosyncrasies.  My mom is a full Philadelphian and some of them say the word color as "keller" and the nuns who came from other parts of the country would have to retrain a lot of us kids to say the word color properly.  In high school, our French teacher said its impossible to teach French to people from Philly, our accent completely mangles the language...well I don't think thats possible to further mangle FRENCH!  Just kidding anyone out there who may be French, don't email me, LOL!

My father was raised on a farm in South Dakota and when he says the word arrow it sounds like "earl" and that bugs me, actually he has another problem, he fell out of his high-chair as a toddler and bit thru his tongue and had to have it stitched by a doctor, ouch!  He also has hearing loss.  So some of his words are strange because of all that.  I can't think of anything else right now, I'd have to have a long conversation with him and write down all his unusual speech mannerisms.

When we were stationed in Philadelphia & New Jersey, I had a hard time with - pop, soda, & Coke. Since I was a bartender, I never knew what they really wanted. I also had a lady from Boston that really confused me, that is when I learned to just smile & say "OK"! There are a few words that really bother me. The show 'Everybody Love's Raymond' he uses AXED not asked, LIBARY is another one that I can not stand, it's like nails on a chalk board!

I don't do well at Spanish because of the rolling R's. I have never tried to learn French.

Sheryl