It has been too long since this morning, but I heard something on the radio this morning that made me do a double take. The thing is, what I heard was not what was said. I totally mis-heard what was said. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the word, or what I thought I heard. All I remember is that it sounded like something I would blog about.
How many times do we mishear something? I’ve written before about misheard song lyrics, so I know this is something that happens to a lot of people.
What I’m wondering today is this: How many times did a misheard word cause trouble? This isn’t something I can easily answer, but the concept is something that caught my attention. I was especially close to this while married. My wife did have a hearing loss and she would often mishear what was said. This did cause a problem or two. Most of the time it was handled well when everyone understood about the hearing loss. I’ve also experienced the problem and I don’t have a hearing loss.
Then again, I wonder how many times mishearing actually helped the situation. I don’t have any experience with this, that I can remember. Anyone?
Just some random thinking for this evening.
I think it happens to everyone whether we care to admit specifics or not… or if we can remember the specifics. I can’t recall specifics at this time. Your original thought has intrigued me if you recall.
Part of the problem is that we so often do not enunciate. I was always in trouble for that one; I talk too fast. But all our words slur together, and then the person we are talking to has to sort them back out. Add to this background noise, phone interference, or acoustics, and sometimes I wonder that Mom could manage at all. Of course, the lip reading helped! 🙂
Draclet has a good point about background noise, etc.
I’ve misheard LOTS of things – lost some hearing when I was a baby due to ear infections. I try to read people’s lips also, but I guess I’m not very good at it. I can’t remember any instances of mishearing for the good, unless you count funny things that have happened and turned into jokes because I didn’t hear well. But when I was younger, kids would assume I wasn’t very smart or that I was kind of an airhead when it turned out I just didn’t know what was going on since I didn’t hear them. As I’ve gotten older, it’s not like the hearing has gotten any better… I’ve been thinking of taking a sign language class if there are any in the area. At the very least, I could communicate with my husband in secret without the kids, hehe!