Justin (3 yrs old) pulls a few coins out of his pocket and picks up a quarter. He pinches it between his thumb and pointer and carefully holds it close to Alice's face.
"Aliss, wahss diss?"
Alice looks up briefly from the flashlight that Justin has just loaned her.
"Dat uh torder."
Unimpressed, she immediately returns her attention to the flashlight. Justin shakes his head and replies.
"No. Issa borter!"
This isn't the first time Justin and Alice haven't understood each others' English dialects. I remember an especially "Abbott and Costello" moment when Justin was talking about fire ("by-uh") and Alice didn't understand. I translated for her and then SHE started talking about fire ("wy-er"). Justin was trying to understand where Alice was seeing all the wires and Alice was frustrated that Justin was saying "wire" when she was trying to communicate "fire" ("wy-er"). She kept trying to "correct" his misunderstanding by shouting, "No, wy-er!" He would reply "Where the wire?" I was caught in the middle, trying to help them understand each other for several minutes, until I finally thought to change the subject..."Ready for snack?"
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That is pretty dang funny. Once when Sam was little we played a game in the car on the way to the Zoo with some friends. It went like this: Me: What animals starts with mon...? Sam: Monkey! Then it's Sam's turn. Sam: What animal starts with Y? So I guess yak. No. I can't think of any others but he refuses to tell me until I guess some more. Yeti? I don't think he even knows what it is, but he still says No. So I give up and he announces the answer: "Wie-unn!" My friend commented that this game was tougher than she thought.
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