Hawaiian Cheese and Little Loans

Working with a colleague this morning the topic of misunderstood words came up. He told me that when he was young he heard this phrase quite a lot.

"We haven't got enough coffee for everyone here, little loan, the people outside.

Of course, little loan was really let alone. But that's what he heard.

He also was surprised how often his parents ate Hawaiian food. Regularly they would get together with friends to have
Hawaiian Cheese. I imagine you can figure this one out.

As for me, I thought the song, Get Off Of My Cloud, was really
Alphabet Clown. We probably all have examples of our own and I would love you to share some of them here.

How I Would Use This

How is it that we mishear things so well. I think it all has to do with making meaning out of life. All we have to go by, sometimes, is what we know of life. So we take ideas with which we are familiar and link them to unfamiliar ideas. So Hawaiian Cheese made a lot of sense to a little boy who understood what cheese was, and probably thought the Hawaiian variety was what was so attractive to adults.

When we introduce unfamiliar ideas and concepts it is powerful to link them to something we already know. Tomorrow I will share my idea on the Swiss Army Knife and how it links to technology.

So, for now, take a moment and scribble down the things you misheard in your life and share it with us.