The words Flower and Flour are similar. And even though flour is made from flower - in a way - the two are mostly unrelated. Growing up, both were in abundance in our home. My mum could say, "Pass me the fl---r on the kitchen table," and leave me in a state of unnerving confusion. And while I don't have any recollection of that actually happening, it is not unlikely that such an incidence would have transpired.
When my mother taught me to say 'flour', she made sure I'd never again mix it up with her other great love, the flower. It's quite simple, really; the one without the 'w' did not have a double u in its pronunciation. Meaning that, "Pass me the flaaar," was clearly distinguishable from, "Pass me the flower." (I suppose the 'w' had no need of italics, but the point is now, perhaps, clearer.)
Thus I spent my life, according Flour a certain sort of lofty lilt. It is impossible to split a single sound into two rising syllables without also raising one's head upward. This typically gives the appearance of sticking one's nose in the air - or, literally, being stuck up.
I bore the burden of my superior articulation with some pride, I'll admit. Perhaps of the humble brag sort. I'd ask my friends if they knew where I could find gluten-free flaaar and wonder if they could spot how distinguished my pronunciation was, all the while modestly hoping I hadn't embarrassed them with such brazen demonstration of my learnedness.
It was with this burden of modesty that I so politely asked the woman at the local store where I could find the flaaar.
"The what?"
I took a breath and slowly broke the five-letter mono-syllable down as patiently as I could.
"Flaaar."
She blinked.
"Flaaar. Flaaaaar. Flaar."
Nothing.
"For baking."
"OH!" She exclaimed with equal parts clarity and exasperation. "FloWer." And she briskly walked me toward an aisle.
Visions of gluten free rose petals filled my anxious mind as I speed-walked after her, but then she stopped, pointed, and carried on with her busyness and in front of me were powder white bags of flaaar.
Could it be?
All the way home I rolled the words around in my head, tasting them for deception. No; it couldn't be. I refused to insult almost thirty years of ingrained teaching by consulting something so disreputable as a dictionary. I mean, if lol could be considered a word.
The phonemes visited me in my dreams. A tribal council with the phonetic symbols holding up spears as they chanted, "Fla-aar! Fla-aar!" Or was it, "Flower!"? I woke up in a cold sweat and reached for my audio dictionary.
When my mother taught me to say 'flour', she made sure I'd never again mix it up with her other great love, the flower. It's quite simple, really; the one without the 'w' did not have a double u in its pronunciation. Meaning that, "Pass me the flaaar," was clearly distinguishable from, "Pass me the flower." (I suppose the 'w' had no need of italics, but the point is now, perhaps, clearer.)
Thus I spent my life, according Flour a certain sort of lofty lilt. It is impossible to split a single sound into two rising syllables without also raising one's head upward. This typically gives the appearance of sticking one's nose in the air - or, literally, being stuck up.
I bore the burden of my superior articulation with some pride, I'll admit. Perhaps of the humble brag sort. I'd ask my friends if they knew where I could find gluten-free flaaar and wonder if they could spot how distinguished my pronunciation was, all the while modestly hoping I hadn't embarrassed them with such brazen demonstration of my learnedness.
It was with this burden of modesty that I so politely asked the woman at the local store where I could find the flaaar.
"The what?"
I took a breath and slowly broke the five-letter mono-syllable down as patiently as I could.
"Flaaar."
She blinked.
"Flaaar. Flaaaaar. Flaar."
Nothing.
"For baking."
"OH!" She exclaimed with equal parts clarity and exasperation. "FloWer." And she briskly walked me toward an aisle.
Visions of gluten free rose petals filled my anxious mind as I speed-walked after her, but then she stopped, pointed, and carried on with her busyness and in front of me were powder white bags of flaaar.
Could it be?
All the way home I rolled the words around in my head, tasting them for deception. No; it couldn't be. I refused to insult almost thirty years of ingrained teaching by consulting something so disreputable as a dictionary. I mean, if lol could be considered a word.
The phonemes visited me in my dreams. A tribal council with the phonetic symbols holding up spears as they chanted, "Fla-aar! Fla-aar!" Or was it, "Flower!"? I woke up in a cold sweat and reached for my audio dictionary.
***
Life does not prepare you for the moments that will alter the course of your future.
They say everything changes when you learn to drive, or when you graduate, or when you fall in love - but those things don't take everything you have ever known to be true, hold them up to the scrutiny of everything everyone else has ever known to be true, and watch it all crumble in the light of the Free Dictionary. You grow up, innocent, naive, trusting; with ideas in your head made out of mere words, and you believe those words to be true. But you can never trust the words.
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