Also yesterday, a boy in Canal Street asked me if I had any small coins to spare. Then he apologised for mithering me
Its a long time since I heard anyone use that word. It was one with which most children, in the North at least, used to be all too familiar. Adults, mothers in particular, always wanted you to stop mithering them
Pronounced m'eye-th'd. So thats probably why, in my early reading to myself, I thought there was a word pronounced m'eye-zzld
I was mortifyingly old - 10 at least - when I found out it should be pronounced miss-led
But maybe theres something genetic rather than just regional about this mistake of pronunciation. For years my mother thought there was a Gilbert & Sullivan opera called The Mike Adoo
And there ought to be a word for the misery-inducing practice of m'eye-zzling
