I'm constantly entertained by the stuff kids come out with. Only at the start of this term, two of ours independently came home to announce that their respective form mistresses were Miss Cane and Miss Smacky (quite close, in fact: Miss Kane and Miss Mackie... an ominous-sounding pair merely lacking the Trunchbull as head). So I'm always on the alert for lateral interpretations of sounds that we've long ago lost the childlike talent to hear. Another example was a question I got recently... "Dad - what's a shallawander?" (Surely you remember? Goosey goosey gander, with a shallawander.) It's great. And so easy to overlook that vast army of listeners out there who hear something completely different to what we think we're telling them. I suppose on the plus side, they often imagine something far more vivid than we could ever portray: I recall admonishing: "Don't drop crumbs, it attracts vermin".... to receive the reply "Who's Vermin?" I can just picture him. Wonderful.
