Constant/Consonant

The other day in work, a coworker was making a joke about another one (not a derogatory joke, mind you, a joke that she often makes about herself). However, this coworker kept referring to the wrong name, continually calling her "Candice". He goes through this big long thing, and I'm just sitting there wondering who Candice is, before he finally realizes he wasn't even close. However, he justified himself at the end, after correcting himself, by saying that "they start with the same letter."

I'm going to protect this other coworkers identity, but her name starts with a "T".

And "T" isn't anywhere close to being the same letter as "C", thank you very much.

Imagine, for a moment, someone talking like that. Using those two consonant sounds interchangeably, as if they were the same. Someone in New York would tall a caxi, and someone at a bar would put their drinks on their cab.

No, the language doesn't work that way.

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Date posted: 28 October, 2007
Tags: anecdote linguistic pronunciation spelling
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