Bloggercises: My day of shame
September 15th 2008 08:58
Many years ago I was standing in the front bar of a trendy Adelaide pub telling some work mates about my day. Fuelled by a few beers, I was being witty and urbane, and the longer I went, the more wittier and urbanier I became. The sound of my voice was, you know, soaring, like somone nessun dormaring in the shower.
Little did I know that instant sobriety was about to land on me like a ton of non sequiturs.
We were all journalists and we had all had a long day in the newsroom. My friends sipped their beer and waited patiently for my punch line.
"And then," I said, hearing a drum roll, "I received a communeek ..."
"A what?" interrupted one friend.
I knew, instantly and with deep conviction, that I was in big trouble. I had never been comfortable with the pronunciation of that word. A veteran of 10 years in journalism, I was still too young not to be mortified by public embarrassment and I was, I knew, about to be embarrassed. And then humiliated. And then shamed. And then, worst of all, laughed at.
I don't understand how I could have lived so long, and all the while working in and amongst communication professionals, without discovering that the word communiqué was pronounced "communikay".
Not "communeek".
Now, perhaps 25 years later, I have been able to talk about this devastating moment for the first time, and I would like to thank you all for listening.
The real point, however, is that we all learn mispronunciations and mis-spellings at some point in our lives, and sometimes they stay with us for years.
I propose posting a series of exercises which will take no more than five minutes each to complete and which will, I hope, help just about anyone improve their spelling.
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