Go Fosh Yourself

Everyone I work with has at least one glaring speech impediment. This is ok...I don't really care. But I could've come to blows with one woman after an exchange we had over one particular word this week.

You see, she sat down with me and told me she wanted me to take the oral phonics tests we give the students so I would be completely familiar with everything. No problem. That's fair. These tests involve sitting down and reading a lot of nonsense words. They're designed so students have to utilize their phonics knowledge to blend letters and recognize certain vowel sounds. We sat down and I started reading the words, and all was well until we got to "phish." How would you pronounce that word? "Fish," right? LIKE THE BAND. Phish.

"No," my coworker says. "Read it again."

Me: "Ummm...it's pronounced like 'fish.'"

Her: "No. It's 'fosh.'"

Me: "Uh, are we looking at the same word? P-h-i-s-h would totally be pronounced 'fish.'"

Her: "No, sweetie. Look at it. It's 'ph' like in 'phone' and 'ish' like in 'wish.'"

Me: "Yeah exactly. So 'fish.'"

Her: "NO. Look at it. 'FOSH.'"

Me: "I swear to you I read it and I see it! But it's just like the band, Phish. FISH. I don't see 'fosh' at ALLLLLL."

Her: "How can you not see that it's 'fosh?'"

Me: "How can YOU not see that it's obviously 'fish'? I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one."

Her: "Fine, just as long as you see it's 'fosh' when you grade the kids."

What the hell man? On what planet would you read that word as 'fosh'?" No planet, that's which planet. These people make me nuts with their weird word quirks. My dad put it all into perspective for me, though. "If all else fails and you can't keep working there because the people are nuts," he said, "you can always just relax and go foshing." Heh. Well played, Dad. You've just earned yourself the quote of the day.

I'd write more right now but my computer is starting to act like a crankypants, so I'm not going to push it.