Article by Peter Joy for the newsletter on 9.1.2025
Dear Reader,
Do you confuse your L with your R?
There are some people – intelligent people like you and me – who confuse their left and their right. For these we may offer a tip which may help. It arises from a quotation from one of A.A. Milne’s Pooh stories, where Pooh had the brilliant realisation that when you knew which side was the right side, the other side must be the left. Or vice versa. I hope this may afford some illumination and comfort to those of you who may suffer from this confusion.
Our Greek dance instructor refined the distinction still further during a recent lesson. He stressed how important it was to start a particular dance with the right foot. (I mean the non-left foot – which happened in this case to be the right, ie., correct foot. Sorry, am I confusing you?). Anyway, to facilitate the movement for those who might have difficulty deciding which was their right foot, he considerately rolled up his right trouser-leg and instructed us to follow the hairy leg. The only objection one might raise to this well-meant instruction is that there remained a very high likelihood that his left leg was equally hairy. One might thus still remain in a state of uncertainty regarding which leg he meant. Nevertheless, despite this theoretical obstacle most most of us got the idea.
Even if you are able to sort out your right from your left, travel on the Helsinki metro still involves potential pitfalls. For most station stops, the exit door is announced thus: ”Exit via the left hand door” or words to that effect. This asumes that you are sitting facing the direction of travel. If you are unfortunate enough to be seated the other way round and only awaken at the last moment from your daily doze, you may in your confusion try to spring up and charge through the wrong door, with painful consequences. I think this may have happened to me once or twice, which probably explains why I’m writing rubbish like this.
But that’s not exactly what I mean by ’confusing your L’s and your R’s. I really meant to discuss confusion arising from the pronunciation of these two consonants. Difficulties distinguising the l- and r-sounds can give rise to hilarious situations. During our stay in Zambia our kids attended the local school where one day the religion instructor informed the class: ”There was a virrage by ths shores of Rake Garriree”. When we flew via Zambia Airways to Mauritius for a holiday, an air hostess announced upon landing: ”We hope you had a preasant fright” – which tickled our kids pink! Just before we left Zambia, the gardener asked me a question about politics, which came out: ”How often do you have erections in your country, sir?” The poor fellow was doubled up with laughter when I explained to him what he’d just asked me. The confusion over ’l’ and ’r’ is all the more surprising when Zambians pronounce the name of their capital city, ”Rusaka” perfectly. Sorry, I meant Lusaka. We found our parlance enriched by certain turns of phrase we picked up in Zambia and gradually incorporated in our own vocabulary. When one of our drivers, Mr Nyambe overturned the landrover he was driving in a particularly dramatic and alarming manner, we thought the poor man was a goner. Imagine our delight when a minute later from the wreckage there emerged I asked ”Mr Nyambe, are you alright?” ”Well, I’m a little bit okay”. The landrover was a write-off, but Mr Nyambe subsequently made a complete recovery, thank heavens. At my advanced age, I often find that his phrase admirably sums up how I’m feeling nowadays: a little bit okay.
Here in Finland we sometimes come across confusion over the pronunciation of ’d’ and ’r’. I have a botanist friend from Pohjanmaa who talks about rhororenrons (rhododendrons). Perhaps not unrelated are spoonerisms, where syllables or consonants get switched between two words. The term was coined after a Revd. Spooner, who was prone to inadvertently crossing over syllables in this manner. We find spoonerisms both in Finnish and English, and doubtless in other languages as well. Spooner once said to a stranger who was occupying his personal pew in the college chapel: ”Excuse me, but I think you are occupewing my pie.” He began a speech to an audience of farmers: ”I have never before addressed so may tons of soil.” In Finnish the clothing firm Karkelon Sukka might be mispronounced Surkelon Kakka. And Myllypuro could be corrupted to Pyllymuro. My wife has an almost inexhaustible supply of such Finnish spoonerisms, not all of them suitable for quoting here.
Malapropisms occur where a speaker uses a word similar to the appropriate word he’s groping for, but which often has a completely different meaning. The term is based on a fictitious character, Mrs Malaprop created by Sheridan in his play ’The Rivals’. For example, Mrs Malaprop ”gave us a few well-frozen worms (well chosen words)” and ”Don’t you think you are bounding over your steps? (…overstepping your bounds)”.The lady’s name derives from the French ’mal a propos’, implying an inappropriate meaning. I imagine that malapropisms occur in almost any language, but I feel that the English language offers exceptionally fertile ground for them. My friend Peter Knight remembers the chairman of a cricket club who admonished some club members ”who cast nasturtiums (he meant aspersions) on so-and-so”. The unfortunate chairman had confused his horticultural vocab with his store of derogatories.
Oh dear! I wonder how many malapropisms you’re finding in my story?
Have a Wovely Leek!
Peter J