this thread makes me sad-- i think of all the fun we had when ever any one opened their mouth at the first wordapalozza..

one Kiwi (no names mentioned!) told a joke about a man going to a pit shop to buy a present for his wife.. (and i thought--a pit shop? i know some stores in the scranton area of Pennsylvania sell anthracite coal carved into knick knacks-- but a whole store for pits- was there an other meaning to pits besides the mining one i was thinking off?)
and seconds later, i got my answer... at the pit shop the man was buying birds, or gerbils.. Oh, it was a PET shop..and being me, i ruined the flow of the joke by breaking in and saying..Whoa, wait a minute.. pit and pet have different vowels, and different sounds..

There were constant occurance of 'double takes'--and "what was that?" as we listened to each other.. and great show was done, with a group from the UK reading a skit.. to us, from US, is was the same word over and over again..but spoke, one single place name, had 3 different "sounds"!


my other obsession