Misreading, mishearing words

The older I get — (strike the word “older” change to “more mature.” The more mature I get, the more words I misread. I read a lot, so that adds up to a lot of misread words.

You’d think this would be a problem but, actually, makes reading more interesting.

Take a poem I read that had the word paeans in it. I read that word as pecans which greatly improved the poem, because who wants to read about paeans?

Most of the misread words are in crossword puzzles. Some of the puzzle clues are like in 4 point type — which if you aren’t familiar with type size, is too small to be read by a mature person. And, practically speaking, how many young people with 20/20 eyesight work crossword puzzles now?

For instance, I read the clue, “Hearty quaff” to be “heavy quaff” which had me puzzled for a while until the answer was obviously ale. Ale could be a heavy quaff, especially in a heavy mug, so that misread clue was understandable.

In the same set of clues, I misread the clue “gels” as “gets”. Since it was only a 4-letter answer, it straightened itself out fairly quickly.

A more off-putting clue I read as “Hitler’s stat”, on closer examination turned out to be Hitter’s stat., which was a relief because I can’t imagine any statistic attributable to Hitler being anything but grim. I figured out my mistake when the answer turned out to be RBI — runs batted in. This same clue came up again— and again I misread “Hitter” for Hitler but I think I’ll remember the next time.

I take a couple of magazines that have a full-page crossword puzzle in each issue. That makes reading the clues a lot easier — but it’s harder to pen in the answers on their slick paper, right or wrong.

Also — as is the case with the more mature people we know — not only is eyesight a little tricky but so is hearing.

I, for example, was talking with one of my sons when he mentioned the word “whore house,” which immediately got my undivided attention.

“What about a whore house?” I immediately asked him.

“No, No,” he responded, half horrified and half laughing, “I said, ‘poor house!’”

I was still so shocked at him using the term “whore house” that I didn’t even listen to his explanation of why he was talking about a poor house.

Then, recently, we were watching the evening news together and he commented on something he’d just heard. “Sex is out,” he said. I’d been only half-listening but this also got my complete attention.

“Sex is out?” I repeated, incredulously. He laughed so hard his face turned red and he could hardly speak.

NO! He corrected me loudly. “Checks are out! The government is sending out the checks to people. Checks! Checks!”

“Oh,” I said. I thought my version was more interesting.

I suppose you could regret misreading and mishearing words. I choose to think it just makes reading and discussion more interesting.

Mary McClure is a former newspaper editor who lives in Lawton.