<p>When D1 was in first grade she had her first library assignment. The assignment was to pick an animal, draw it, and write 5 facts about it. While doing “research” in the local library on her animal, the zebra, D1 opened a book on zebras and pointed to a picture of two zebras mating. Very excitedly she said “I know a fact, Mommy! Zebras like to play piggyback.” I was very tempted to include it in her list of zebra facts.</p>
<p>CDK, you might appreciate that Mathson’s favorite bedtime story when he was about four or so was Dh’s rendition of Tommy the T-Cell and his other friendly immune system cells.</p>
<p>Very excitedly she said “I know a fact, Mommy! Zebras like to play piggyback.” I was very tempted to include it in her list of zebra facts.</p>
<p>My parents version of sex education was to give me an Art Linkletter album about the Birds & the Bees. ( literally)
It didn’t really translate 
</p>
<p>Son, around seven: “Why don’t we have any tabasco sauce?” Mom, “Well
remind me when we’re at the store, I’ll buy some” Son, “You know they have
little packages of it at Taco Bell…we could go and take some” </p>
<p>Mom, “Now (son), what if you were grown up and you owned a Taco Bell and you had a wife and children to support…and sometimes people come in
and don’t buy any tacos, they just take your hot sauce and leave?”</p>
<p>Son (sighs with weight of ethics lesson)</p>
<pre><code>“I just hate it when you have a point!”
</code></pre>
<p>Fun piece. Thanks for the link. An important debate in Hendrix land.</p>
<p>Eddie ( Vedder- from pearl jam) mentioned during the Benaroya show, that Mike’s ( McCready) favorite * KISS* tune was
</p>
<p>early in my son’s schooling, he had an assignment with a ‘due date’. Of course I was urging him to get started on the project. “but mom, it’s not the ‘do’ date yet”.<br>
I had to explain the difference between do and due, ie you can do it, before it’s due.</p>
<p>Of course, 12+ years of school later, I know he understands the words, but sometimes the ‘due date’ is still the ‘do date’ much to my dismay…</p>
<p>Pardon me for making this remark – I can’t resist… </p>
<p>[linguistics]</p>
<p>sueinphilly: I think it also reveals a bit about the phonology of the variant of English spoken in your area. 
</p>
<p>(Or maybe it’s my dialect … for me, “dew”/“due” and “do” are phonemically distinct. [Phonological</a> history of English consonant clusters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Phonological history of English consonant clusters - Wikipedia”>Phonological history of English consonant clusters - Wikipedia)) </p>
<p>[/linguistics]</p>
<p>You may now turn back to your regularly-scheduled programming. ;)</p>
<p>^ Kids say the darndest things!</p>
<p>My D and I were at a festival where they had food stalls. She saw a cart selling kielbasa and peppers. She turns to me and says “Mom, what’s a polish sausage” (polish, like to polish furniture, not Polish, like the people - don’t know if that translates in writing). She was around 12.</p>
<p>We were shopping at Christmastime and she saw these cute boxes that looked like a tie, and inside the boxes were a tie and cufflink set. She looks at me totally bemused and said ‘I don’t get it. Why are there earrings?’</p>
<p>College S who just completed his freshmen year and is now working full time this summer. After completing his first day he announced “i can’t believe that I am under the age of 40 and have to go to bed at 10 p.m. so I can get up for work tomorrow.” Welcome to my world, heck if I can get in bed at 10 p.m. then that is a good evening.</p>
<p>kathiep - 
I can’t make dew, due, and do sound distinct! How?</p>
<p>I would say any of those words and they would all sound the same, due, do, dew :-)</p>
<p>Heck if I can stay up until 10pm, that’s a late night for me!</p>
<p>jude_36, a friend of mine gave her grad date a set of cuff links. Her date opened up the box and had no idea what they were. “Earrings? What am I supposed to do with these?” (He was completely serious too)</p>
<p>One night I was talking with my siblings…(Note: I’m 18, and my brother and sister are 6 and 7 respectively)</p>
<p>Brother: “When CDN_dancer was our age, there was no T.V. yet…”
Me: “There was TV; I’m not that old!”
Brother: “Oh. So when Mommy was our age, there was no T.V. yet, right?”
Me: “TV was around when Mom was your age too.”
Sister: “Really? But that was like 1000 years ago!”</p>
<p>For me “due” and “dew” are pronounced <a href=“like%20%22deeyou%22%20but%20pronounced%20as%20one%20quick%20gliding%20syllable,%20just%20like%20%22shield%22%20is%20%5BSij@ld%5D%20%22shee-yuld%22%20pronounced%20as%20one%20quick%20gliding%20syllable”>dju^w</a>.</p>
<p>Reminds me of a New York coworker many years ago who insisted to we Californians that “fog (faahg) and dog (dowag) don’t rhyme.”</p>
<p>mikasauntie: Another area where there’s been a plethora of linguistics research on. </p>
<p>[Phonological</a> history of English low back vowels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Phonological history of English open back vowels - Wikipedia”>Phonological history of English open back vowels - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Nope, it’s all the same do-do to me. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the link to the research! My Scottish dad talked about the lack of distinction between merry, marry, and Mary, which all are different in Scottish English. Though when I imitate a Scottish accent, merry and Mary come out quite the same.</p>
<p>My Boston suburbs Mom pronounces Mary, merry and marry differently. My midwest Dad pronounces them all the same. I’m somewhere between, marry is definitely different, but I pronounce the other two the same or very close to the same.</p>