,
Sequestered at home for months on end, I’ve spent countless
hours ruminating about everything under the sun. I’ve been questioning, analyzing, revising,
improvising and just trying to figure it all out. I’ve either gone loco in lockdown or I’ve
stumbled into a parallel universe. A
world where the familiar is no longer similar to what it was the day before. Perhaps I’ve tripped and have fallen down the
rabbit hole close to where Alice made her acquaintance of the Mad Hatter and
The Hare.
Forever stuck in Time sipping tea at 18:00 o’clock.
My new reality…
My world had turned upside down.
Earl Grey is not my favoured choice of tipple. The shelves were bare with no dark roast
anywhere. My French Vanilla beans were nowhere
to be seen. I could only assume that
they were sheltering in the corner, whispering about conspiracies, hoaxes and
hidden agendas. I had no idea that secrets were being kept and
I had been excluded from the loop.
It all started with a random text from The Kid.
“Auntie Nora, how do you spell the word
dilemma? Dilemma with a double M or dilemna with a silent N?”
Simple enough, non?
Trick question, I thought. Surely
there are dictionaries to verify and I have far more pressing issues at
hand. After all, there’s a pandemic out
there and I’m on the hunt for survival gear.
Who has the time to double-check spell-check when I’m immersed in a battle for victory, scrambling to secure enough PPE (personal protective equipment) to
tide me over for the next hundred years.
Might as well placate The Kid and sound
out the letters and get her off my back. After all, I’m a wordsmith
and spelling is my thing. Linguistics is
right up my alley. My leisure time was
spent not on the playground but camped out in The Shrine. Otherwise known as The Library.
D. I. L. E. M. N. A.
And don’t forget NOT to pronounce the
silent N.
And just because I’m that type of
triple-checking sort of gal, thought I’d also look it up in The Dictionary just
to prove that I’m always right.
D. I. L. E. M. M. A.
Nooooooooo!! That can’t be real!
There’s a double MM? More like double
vision. Am I losing my mind or even worse, my sight? WHERE
is the silent N? Or, is
it so silent that it has forever disappeared, never to be heard from ever
again?
What is going on? WHO changed
the spelling and WHY wasn’t I informed of this monumental shake-up of the
placement of these two consonants? Should I just chalk it up to an
ill-placed typo? Perhaps Webster’s has already discovered their
gaffe, re-ignited the presses and churned out truckloads of re-prints,
discretely re-stocking the shelves of bookstores and libraries worldwide.
Frantic, in a panic, my first thought
was to ring up DUW (Dictionaries United Worldwide) and petition for the
truth. I clearly remember way back in September, decades of moons ago, my Grade 4 teacher explaining the intricacies of spelling
certain words, like dilemna. The first rule of thumb is to chant the
alphabet: The letter M is followed by the letter N.
To help solidify, do not pronounce DIL
- EM - NA. Notice the silent N.
Forever ingrained in my brain.
Really wish that I had kept a copy of
my out of print tattered dictionary
so I that I could look up the correct spelling of dilemna and show the world the truth.
The planet has gone bonkers and I’m
hunkered down in a bunker on the other side of the looking glass peering into a
sea of disbelief.
The clock chimed six. Time to skedaddle and join the Mad Hatter and Hare for Chardonnay.
Addendum: For a
fascinating and informative read, I suggest that you Google The Mandela Effect
and decide for yourselves the strange phenomenon of false memories. There are two camps of people with
drastically differing opinions. Those who believe and those in the know. And don’t
even get me started on the correct spelling of The Berenstein Bears, Jiffy peanut butter and the cartoon series Looney Toons! The list goes on and on and on...
Next post: In a week
or two! Sometime the w/o June 15th
or w/o June 22nd. On either
Tuesday or Wednesday or thereabouts.
Stay tuned!
The tale of my topsy-turvy orbit continues...
The tale of my topsy-turvy orbit continues...
Stay home, stay safe and catch up with your reading!
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Not everyone gets a special invite to the tea-party. |
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| No need to further explain. |
10 June 2020 at 16:30
Yet another GREAT read, thank you Nora!!!!!!
10 June 2020 at 17:51
Thank You so very much Sandra for your lovely comment. I appreciate it so much. I had a lot of fun writing this piece and am so glad that you enjoyed reading it. Take care and be safe out there.