Have you been on walks where you have looked at boards and kept mis(s)pronouncing them and at a stretch? Well, today’s was one such walk for me!!😊. In addition, I had my own associations and connections that I made.

NOTE and DISCLAIMER  – This blog may have references to some brands / shops. These make no inferences to the brands / shops but are mentioned  as they triggered some thoughts within me.

The first –

There was this board at a shop that had the name of some of their pizzas. ‘Coorg chicken pizza’ was one of the flavors. The ‘chicken’ became ‘kitchen’ for me and I read it as ‘Coorg kitchen’. Both are seven letter words with almost the same letters. Just that the T is in the kitchen while C is in the chicken. This chicken and kitchen then became the reason for the tongue twister – The chicken is in the kitchen. The tongue twisted for me when I said it fast and it became ‘The kitchen is chicken’ (You may want to try the tongue twister and see what it becomes for you 😊).  I burst into a wide smile and a chuckle or two, as I murmured the tongue twister and walked. I saw a few other walkers who kept looking at me as they passed by. A gentleman who was riding on his bike, saw me smiling and chuckling to myself and lost his speed. As I walked past him and saw his puzzled look, my smile widened. Imagine their thoughts of seeing this woman walking with no headphones, but murmuring to herself, smiling and chuckling 😊

The second –

Here was this shop that sold Paan, bisuits etc etc.. Right next to it was a board that said, ‘PAN / AAdhar card done’. When I read the board loudly, the PAN card became PAAN card because I was still in the Paan shop frame of mind; and to transition from Paan to PAN didn’t happen quickly.  A quirky thought that also occured – That this was a person who issues Paan cards for his cutomers and for every paan a customer buys from him, points can be accumulated. An extra ‘a’ can change context and business😊. Well, super duper ideas come from such quirky thoughts!!

The third  –

Healthway became Hathway for me!! and I wondered why a Hathway board would have a + sign on it.. Oops!! Looks like the ‘e and l’ went for a walk together too, in my mind!! Or perhaps my brain went on a different network (no pun intended 😊) and mis(s)pronounced a Pharmacy for a Network Service Provider.. Hmmmn, Hathway could have a Tagline that says ‘Go for Hathway Network to be be in a Health(y)way!! From super duper ideas and quirky thoughts to taglines popping up – look what a walk can do 😊

The fourth – 

This one I pronounced right but raised a question – Tea can be associated with Cafe or vice versa but why the name TeaVilla Cafe? Perhaps the owner had made their own association to a Villa and drew inspiration from it? Or the building is fairly big and looks like a Villa and therefore it became TeaVilla Cafe? Or the spread of the Teas available here is as big as a Villa and therefore the name? Acho!! so many questions – everything is in a name!! The person who kept the name may have had one association to make but me as the reader of the board, made too many associations – TooVilla Mind!!

The fifth – 

Why a pineapple is called a pineapple? Has this question popped up in your mind? It has never popped for me, till today.  It did today, quirkily, when I saw a cart full of pineapples.. I could understand that the outside of the pineapple looks as though it is many pine cones together and so the ‘pine’ part of pineapple; but why the apple? It doesn’t even look like an apple. So I approached Google aunty and found one site that was informative enough.. Pls refer to it for more details –

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/word-history-pineapple

An interesting learning for me (from another site) is that a pineapple is many berries that have fused together – technically referred to as multiple fruit or collective fruit.

Omissions, additions, substitutions (meaningless or meaningful), associations that seems quirky and yet sensible enough, laughter at the associations because of the thoughts I attach to the association, curiosity – this was one walk where I could associate and connect to what children do (and going by today, even adults do😊; when they read words, when they transition from one thought to another, when they make their own associations in their mind and let out a laugh or a smile, when they ask questions that may not have occured to us before or quirky as they may seem to be (questions that stump us and make us smile).

Nature is learning and learning is nature (or rather natural) 😊

Every walk is a story of collective incidents!!