It Pays to Read Novels in Your Childhood

When it comes to strange speech and the writing of it, some examples take the cake. Here’s one to give you a laugh.

Growing up, I’d heard the words dresser and chest as pieces of furniture in our household. But in novels I read chest of drawers and became familiar with the term. As an adult, I was shocked to see in print a reference to Chester drawers, and had to figure that one out. Here’s what I concluded:

In some northeast areas of this country the furniture was alluded to as chest o’ drawers. In the South, if you didn’t read novels, you might say chesta drawers. Any Bostonian knows that a final a is pronounced er, as in Cuber for Cuba. (JFK) Chester is a proper name. Ergo, it must be Chester drawers.

When I first mentioned this dummie error to a few friends, at least two of them said, “But isn’t that right?”

That reminds me of another one. The expression such as would have gone or would have been. When we speak informally, we are likely to say, would’ve, the contraction of would have. But many times this has been abused in writing with this version: would of as in would of been. Go figure.

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