Enunciate please

Enunciation is a very important part of speech. All sorts of problems can arise if one does not enunciate properly. One occasion in particular comes to mind. It happened at the end of a cycle class as we were in the process of stretching. I told everyone to 'open through the chest.' What they heard was, 'everyone, hold your breath.' The room became eerily quiet until one guy finally asked if they could breath again.

Enunciation problems are not new to our family. Thanks to Lauren we have all had to deal with the challenges of understanding someone who is hard to understand. Although, I have to admit, her speech problems have come in handy from time to time. As a small fry Lauren tended to be extremely honest . . . with everyone. That included the random stranger who might have had a noticeable 'issue' or two.

Still, trying to understand her was difficult. One of our more frustrating conversations happened when she tried explaining to me how she said the word 'willy' like 'willy.' (the word 'really' like 'willy') For the life of me I had no idea what she was talking about, and it took her almost ten minutes to find a way to explain it. Having your six year old look at you like your mentally handicapped can really do a number on the ole' self esteem.

Today we had another mishap. It didn't necessarily have anything to do with enunciation, but it is just so good I have to tell it. I don't want to get into all the gory details, so I'll just give the gist. Bryant told us he enjoyed being a thespian. Lauren told Bryant that she would always love him, even if he was a thespian. I, after realizing what Lauren thought a thespian was, almost drove us onto the sidewalk.