English: Humming Bird – Texas (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I like to ponder over things, especially at stores. I examine the product carefully, turn over the package several times, ask myself whether or not I should buy it, if I’ll get good use out of it, if it is exactly what I want, if it’s worth the money, etc.
I had always thought that this process was called “humming and hawing.”
I knew what humming was, of course, and when I was carefully weighing a decision or debating with myself over a specific purchase it could very well sound like humming.
“I don’t know. Should I? Shouldn’t I? hmmmm”
Of course, I didn’t know what hawing meant or why it fit together but I’d heard the phrase so many times, that I picked it up and it became part of my regular vocabulary.
Last week, while reading a YA novel, I was stopped in my tracks when I came across the phrase actually written down in black and white. It read “hemming and hawing” not “humming and hawing.”
I took to the Internet and confirmed it. I had been saying it wrong pretty much my entire life.
This has happened before too.
I used to think “For all intense and purposes” was actually “For all intensive purposes.” I had been saying it wrong for years as well.
I wonder how many other phrases I have been saying wrong.
Do you have any similar stories you’de like to share? Anything you’ve said wrong for a period of time?
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