Mucking about

Quite often, I find myself bored to tears. My everyday life is filled with monotony. Things that hold my interest for any length of time, are hard to come by, so I tend to create things that occupy my time. Those things could be some sort of word game, designed to engage others and study their reactions… using language that can be easily confused, to see if the other person knows or catches the usage. Purposely mispronouncing words while watching the eyes of the one to which I’m speaking… It can be fun, I must admit.

Or, I would take whatever I had in my environment and ‘do the math’. ‘Doing the math’, might involve trigging out distance to objects from my immediate location, or the steps people would take between certain known points within the room and figuring out the length of their strides, and maybe… the quantity of the many shapes around me, the squares, hexagons, etc., that populate my surroundings. Anything, anything to break up my days into bearable segments.

At one small company many years ago, a couple of us would play word games with one of the owners. We’d choose a ‘word of the day’ and use it in our conversations with the select owner. The word chosen could be something purposely mispronounced, or so obscure that to hear it once would be unusual, but to hear it several times in one day, would be highly suspect. It would go something like this…

Example 1

Owner: “What does the production report look like this morning?”

Reply: “Well, we’re ejactly on track to meet our goals and should incur no penalties by coming in ahead of our deadline.” Ejactly being used in place of the word ‘exactly’ and the word ‘penal’ in the word ‘penalties’, stressed heavily.

Example 2

Owner: “How much material do we need to order to produce the job quantity required?”

Reply: “I think we can order 10 feet of material. That will give us enough to do the job and leave a tittynope in case we need it.” A tittynope is a small amount of leftover, in this case material. It’s also a word no one expects to hear several times a day.

It’s the little distractions that make my day more interesting and helps to pass the time. And, in a round-about way, I learn about the people I involve with my word games. How they react, respond, etc., gives me insight into their educational level and attention to details.

 

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