By the time you are reading this Ol’ Dutch will be wending his way back to Colorful Colorado in the big old Conestoga, Miss Trixie faithfully at his side.
She has been a stalwart at Ol’ Dutch’s side and in fact, just last week had to remind me that it’s been five years since our first date which is otherwise known as “her big mistake.”
Well maybe not quite but our first date was to the circus in Monte Vista and that may have been a portent of things yet to come in our relationship.
And now having used some $20 words already in this column like stalwart and wending I am reminded of trying to help my No. 1 granddaughter learn about the English language.
I think most people my age which, as Trixie says is “only a number, albeit a very large one,” learned to read with phonics. For the uninitiated, this involved learning the sounds that each letter makes and then putting them all together magically.
The only problem with that is the “a” not only sounds like the beginning of apple but also can be a long sound like ace or anxious.  
And, it’s not the only problematic letter. There are many other letters that do the same thing like the letter “c” which every kid can attach to the word “cat” but then have to try and remember that it’s also used for words like “cease” and “chunky.” And why cat cannot be an honest word and begin with the obvious “k” that it sounds like or be like “b” which just has one sound to fool with is beyond me.
This is only compounded with the pronunciations of words in different parts of the country which make for a complete mess.
Perusing the want ads I find quite the menagerie of words that some poor seller is trying to spell to unload an unwanted item for rent money.
I look at boats for sale a lot and there are a lot of “trolley” motors or “trollin” instead of the proper trolling and I just have to roll my eyes.
The most famous misuse of words is with yours and you’re and if I have to explain here you need to just Google it and try harder next time when you use it. School let out for the summer around here.
Of late I have seen ski blue, a wheel barrel, eliminated flooring, bearly used, prayery hay for sale, wurms for fishing, bailing your hay, gators for your shins and last but certainly not least, wenches for sale.
Now I don’t know about you, but while I can decipher what many of those aforementioned items in the list are and can even use a few, I am just not in the market for a woman in a loose fitting dress sailing around on a pirate ship. And how they hook her up to electricity so she becomes an “electric wench” is beyond me.
Being from Colorado I have heard this mentioned many times and people who talk about it are not even careful about discussing this in mixed company or in front of wives and other nefarious partners.
I am not sure what they all do with the wenches and am pretty sure it’s against the law to buy one even in such places as Denver or Las Vegas not to mention Trixie would skin me alive if i even considered it.
Our language is a strange one for certain and difficult to learn so they say but Ol’ Dutch’s foray into learning Spanish seemed just as difficult since most of the time it involved backward phrasing akin to “throwing the cow over the fence some hay.”
So it’s best I guess to stick with what I know and hope that’s enough to figure out the next great deal on Craigslist. Long live the phonemic gods!

Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com or on Twitter at TroutRepublic.