words

I am Stella.

Me:        No “Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges” this time?

Stella:    It goes without saying, though I will probably have to keep on saying it to remind everyone. Humans and bulldogs forget so easily.

Me:        What is the issue of the day?

Stella:    You talk funny.

Me:        I beg your pardon?

Stella:    Okay, I pardon you, but you still talk funny. And Tall Man does, too. You don’t sound like a lot of the people on television. I love television. Except for those weird black and white pictures of old humans from a long time ago. Scary. Humans can be ugly.

Me:        Yes, we can be, in more ways than one.

Stella:    So you should not take so many pictures of yourselves. Really scary.

Me:        Okay, thank you for pointing that out again, Stella. What about this talking funny business?

Stella:    Different humans sound different. And now I notice that different dogs sound different.

Me:        Different dogs?

Stella:    There was that dog I met who said he was from Co-lom-bee-yah. What the freak is that?

Me:        Don’t say ‘freak’, Stella. There is more than enough real cussing and fake cussing as it is in the world without bulldogs adding to it.

Stella:    Well, Mr. Co-lom-bee-yah did not understand the word ‘freak’ either. He did not understand anything that I said and I was speaking very plainly. So I want to know why I can understand some humans and some dogs and can’t understand others. Their words sound strange.

Me:        Are you telling me that dogs have different languages and accents the same way humans do?

Stella:    What? I don’t understand.

Me:        The way we pronounce words, the way we say them has to do with accents. The words we say are language. I am speaking English right now.

Stella:    What? Is English that ‘blah, blah, blah, blah” that we hear from you so often?

Me:        Oh, mercy.

Stella:    Now that sounds like that other dog I met, the one from Fran-sah. She said mer-see, mer-see, mer-see all the time. But it still didn’t sound like what you said.

Me:        Where are you meeting all these dogs from other countries?

Stella:    When I am just walking along, minding my own business. They shout at me. I wish I could answer them, but I don’t understand what they are saying. So I just say, What? It is my question for all dogs.

Me:        I had no idea that that is what we were hearing. I thought all dogs understood each other.

Stella:    If we did, we might not have so many fights.

Me:        You know what. That could be true of humans, too.

Stella:    We really need to write those human and dog dictionaries. It might straighten a bunch of problems out.

Me:        Or cause more.

Copyright 2016 H.J. Hill All Rights Reserved.