Image: "Ear," courtesy of David Bebbennick at Wikimedia Commons via a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License.
My sister-in-law SEL recently pointed out an endearing, if perhaps annoying, habit of mine: I pick up quickly on unusual sayings and phrases and incorporate them readily - occasionally
ad nauseum - into my own speech. This has led me to greet that very same sister-in-law with the chorus of Lionel Richie's "Hello" for several years running. I have more recently adopted her own signature tagline whenever telling a silly or uncanny anecdote: "Believe it."
I posted recently about my fine memory for song lyrics and I think there may be a correlation here. Maybe it's even a diagnosable syndrome: something like Highly Impressionable Hearing Disorder.
When it comes to clever sayings, are you a trendsetter or a trend follower?
When "Friends" was around, I started speaking like Chandler a bit...you know...instead of: "I'm so hungry" I'd say "Could I BE any hungrier?" It seems to have stuck.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is the annoying punster in the family - I wish he just brought up phrases like you, Kristen, but he brings a groan-worthy twist to everything. It's an inherited defect; one of his sisters does this too. I'm a little duller - I need things repeated over and over because I'm always thinking about something else.
ReplyDeleteHighly Impressionable Hearing Disorder. I love it.
ReplyDeleteI pick up accents and rhythms of whatever language is around me. I don't do it consciously. Perhaps a cousin to your disorder. Useful at times. Irritating at others.