Whisper Secrets Only Your People Know

 Whisper Secrets Only Your People Know

“Oh, for cryin’ out sake!”

Laurie laughed.

“What did you just say?”

“Something we say in my family. One of my brothers said it when he was very small, abd our parents started saying it, and now we all tend to say it when we’re exasperated.”

“Heh. We all have our family jargon and conventions.”

“I noticed that at the end of the day you have a way of saying,’Ah’m tahrred. Ah’m tahrred an’ Ah’m hongreh’ in a very thick accent of some kind.”

“Oh, my, that’s a really good example. I picked that up from my father, who got it from his father, who was making fun of what one of his neighbors would say to his wife when he came in out of the fields. And considering how long my father and his father lived, that neighbor must have been wearing himself out in the fields before World War Two, at least.”

“I wonder how long some mannerisms get passed down through families. I heard Erin say ‘After you, Alphonse’ to Nessa the other day.”

“Making reference to a comic strip which ended its run almost a hundred years ago. Which means that it must have been passed down to Erin from her…great-grandmother or great-grandfather, at least.”

“It doesn’t just stay within the family, either. The other day on the radio, I heard the announcer talking about how something was happening ‘all around the world’ in a particular tone of voice, and I finally recognized it as the tone FDR used in his Four Freedoms speech. I doubt the announcer noticed what he was doing.”