Once when I was in a phonetics class at an intensive Spanish training program, the instructor asked everyone to think of a word in Spanish with a long u (ooo) sound. When it got to be my turn, I blurted out the word “gula.” I don’t know why that word came to mind, as I had no idea what it meant. I must have heard it or read it in an article at some point and merely forgotten its meaning. I do remember I said it slow and drawn-out like, though, and I remember thinking I sounded weird as I said it. I also remember the horrified look the instructor gave me when I said it and how she just went on to the next person without commenting. Later when I got to my room I looked up the word and was horrified to find out that it meant “gluttony.” The instructor just happened to be an extremely rotund woman, which explained her horrified reaction to my example. I never went back to the phonetics class (it was an extra-curricular optional activity) and I avoided the instructor from then on.

Lauren – Somewhere