In the old days the kids all had to take classes in elocution.  Maybe the old folks had something, as the following stories might illustrate.

I wanted to do some culling of my cattle herd, so I called my cattle buyer, Blaine Allen, and asked if he could find a buyer for 15 head of cows.

“No problem,” he said.  “I'll call you when I'm ready for them, and we'll load them at Bob Stephens' corral.”

On the appointed day we drove the cows the mile and a half to Bob's corral.  Blaine arrived, and asked, “Where's the rest?”

Confused at his question, I said, “All 15 are here.”

“Fifteen,” Blaine said, “I thought you said fifty!”

I felt badly about the misunderstanding, but somehow Blaine was able to come up with the other 35 that his buyer wanted.

I'm intrigued with the importance of proper enunciation, pronunciation, punctuation, and making oneself understood.

My grandsons, Caleb and Wesley, are fond of wearing tee shirts that convey messages.  Wesley appeared in a shirt that sported a fierce-looking tyrannosaurus Rex.  The two-line caption above it said,                                        “Let's eat kids!

Let's eat, kids!”

The only difference between the two lines was the comma, but the comma completely changed the meaning.  Below the T-Rex was the message:  “Punctuation saves lives.”  Clever.

In the summer of 1969, just before our September wedding, I was on the U.S.S. Banner based in Japan.  Marjorie and I wrote to one another.  I received a sad letter from her telling about her brother-in-law who had gone missing.  His car had been found in the Provo River, but his body had not been located.  The incident had thrown the family into turmoil.  Her letter said, “One thing for sure since this happened, I don't think we can be married too soon.”

I was devastated.  Why should his disappearance have to change our wedding date?  I wrote back that I didn't understand why our marriage would have to be delayed, but if we must wait, I'd do it.

No return letter came for some days.  I was anxious and distressed.  On Marjorie's end she was puzzling over why I had suddenly decided that our marriage would have to wait.  She prayed about it, and the revelation came.  The problem was in my not being able to hear the inflection and emphasis that she had intended for the word “too” to have carried when she wrote the sentence.  She felt that we couldn't be married too soon so that she could get out of that sad and anxious atmosphere.

Then there was my elderly father who was somewhat hard of hearing.  He asked my kids what classes they were taking in school.

“Science and language arts,” was the reply that they gave, but that's not what he heard.

“Silence and laundry charts?!!! he said in astonishment.

Matt hired a veterinarian to work at his clinic whose father was a pharmacist.  One day a black lady with a heavy accent came to the pharmacy and asked for “some peanut butter roll for my smiling, precious Jesus.”

“Peanut butter roll for your smiling, precious Jesus?! he repeated.

“Yeah.”

He repeated the request again and again.  So did she.  Neither was getting through to the other.

He consulted her records hoping for some light.  It was there.  He managed to decipher the strange request.

“Do you mean phenobarbital for your spinal meningitis?”

“Yeah!  Peanut butter roll for my smiling, precious Jesus.”

And then I'll finish this collection with the verbal exchange that my cousin, Terri Weston, had with her husband as she arrived home from the grocery store:

“Jim and I have come to the age where our listening/hearing skills aren't so sharp. To get this story you have to say 'denturists' and 'dead tourists.' Jim was working in the driveway. I had just come home from the grocery store. Jim started talking to me about dead tourists. Not a very cheery hello. I asked him why he wanted to talk to me about dead tourists. He said he was trying to tell me about Nels (a kid who grew up in the neighborhood). I asked WHAT does Nels have to do with dead tourists. Jim said that's what he was trying to tell me. He had seen a thing on dead tourists on TV and Nels was in it. He didn't act like he was sharing a tragedy, more like he was sharing a fun fact. It was close to Halloween, so I thought maybe there was a creepy movie called Dead Tourists and Nels was in it. I asked if we were talking about a movie. No we were NOT talking about a movie. He was trying to tell me that he saw an ad on TV for a dead tourist group and Nels was in it. Okay, I thought, Nels is musical. Maybe the group was a band, like Nels and the Dead Tourists. I asked if we were talking about a band. NO we were NOT talking about a band. And then Jim was frustrated that I kept trying to change the subject to movies and bands and I thought my time would be better spent putting away the groceries as this dead tourist talk was going nowhere. Later, it came clear that Nels is in an ad for a denturist group and he looks just like his dad.

“I wish I could say that this was a one and done, but we keep doing this. Nearly everyday.”