I have forever ruined a word for at least one friend.  It happened when years ago I pointed out that every time I hear the word “meteorologist” my brain hears it as “meaty urologist” and imagines a stocky physician ominously stretching a latex glove over his hand.  Now my friend’s brain does the same thing.

So while a writer shouldn’t be in the business of “ruining” words for people, I can only hope that if I do so the entertainment value is worth it.  Today’s example is courtesy of my daughter, Shelby, and involves words looking alike instead of sounding alike.

Shelby was shopping with her grandmother (my mother-in-law), whom my children call “E.”  This is not an abbreviation to protect her identity.  They really do just call her “E.”  I should explain this at some point.  Stories about how kids name their grandparents amuse me.

Shelby and E were in a store and Shelby reported that she had just seen a beautiful doll.  Here is where I should point out that Shelby taught herself to read when she was three.  By the time she was five I noticed that when she read to me she would process whole sentences so fast that sometimes she would read them aloud using different words but maintaining the meaning.  For example, she might be reading a sentence that ended with “the kids gave their dog a ball” but by the time her mouth could speak those words her eyes would already be looking at the picture so she’d just say something like “the kids gave their ball to the dog.”  She wasn’t just mixing up the word order.  She was reading, comprehending, and then paraphrasing so she could look around while her mouth caught up with her eyes.  Fascinating to watch.

The point here is that she is long past sounding out many words, but sometimes she will blaze right past a new word because it looks like something else if she’s not giving it full attention.

This is how she reported to E that this beautiful doll she had found was called a “Pork Loin.”

Now E is no stranger to dolls as my wife had more than her share of different kinds growing up.  But a Pork Loin doll was a revelation.  I guess if we can have Cabbage Patch Kids why not Pork Loin Dolls?  They would probably be licensed by whatever trade group makes the “other white meat” commercials.

So E went to investigate the mysterious Pork Loin doll.  I guess growing up with me around makes a child is more likely to be familiar with pork products than fine ceramics or artistic pieces of china.

Porcelain.  It was a porcelain doll.  And now every time I see one I will smile.