hooky and the color ornj

26.april.05: in my conversations with kev, two words escaped my mouth as categorically american: i once described a classmate who one day decided to play hooky. he busted out laughing and said "i haven't heard the word hooky since i read tom sawyer!" he then donned his best suthun cowboy accent and proceeded to mock me. in the non-insulting kind of mockery, of course – the british never mean to intentionally hurt with their mockery, just jab a little.

i laughed about it and played along, as only i can do in situations like that.

later on, i started talking about the valley's agriculture, how we had a lot of cows and dairy and grew a lot of oranges –

"it's funny the way you pronounce OAR-unge," kev said.

"you mean ornj? i'm sorry, i'll say OAR-unge – "

"no no, i like it, it sounds nice, don't change it."

other than creeping me out a little, kev was nice. he knew i can't make a permanent switch from one syllable to two. what, do i have all day? we americans like to cut it short. we probably inherited that from the british.

i mean, i know how orange spelled, but come on! there's so many words that the british pronounce completely differently from its spelling. that can't be the only excuse...