Several years ago, 3-year-old Joshua Wood was attending Mass with his father when he tugged on his father's sleeve. "Who is Speedy God?" Joshua asked.

Perplexed, his dad asked him what he meant.

Joshua replied that, when the person up front (the Lector) said, "The Word of the Lord," the people replied, "Thanks, Speedy God!" (Translation: "Thanks, be to God.")

Thanks, Speedy God, for youthful misunderstandings like these! After reading my column from last summer on children's malapropisms, several readers sent me more delightful examples.

James Long of Birmingham, Ala., reports that his 5-year-old son once observed that the family dog needed to go out for a "bow-wowel movement."

When Karen and Mark Metersky of Avon, Conn., asked their young son where he had an itch, he told them, "Behind my knee, in my legpit." "There is no English term for that anatomic area," they write, "except for the medical term 'popliteal fossa.'"

When the young daughter of an ophthalmologist was asked what her father did, reports e-mailer Scott Billyou, she replied, "Oh, he's an awfulmologist."

Ruth Edwards of Simsbury, Conn., remembers returning from Christmas Eve vespers and hearing her 6-year-old daughter tell her younger brother, "It is not 'O Come, Froggy Faithful.' It's 'O Come, Monkey Faithful.'"

On a similar note, Joanne Spence of Farmington, Conn., remembers singing "Silent Night" as a young child and wondering what it must be like to "sleep in heavenly peas."

Likewise, e-mailer Janet Lawler always thought the line from "God Bless America" was "to the oceans white with phone." "I pictured a telephone riding on the waves," she writes, "and I just didn't understand why it was in the song."

Julie Eisdorfer of Ewing, N.J., recalls that her niece Kate always wanted to sit "benext" to her in the car.

When Kate had a summer cold, she reported that it had clogged her "nozzles."

Monica Hatch of Nashville, Ill., reports that one of her students described a conceited young woman as a "real pre-Madonna," while the son of Paul Peeples of Cary, N.C., referred to jazz great Thelonious Monk as "the loneliest monk."

Whenever preschool teacher Sarah Lloyd of Ann Arbor, Mich., would read her students a story about a bear that got "the shivers," one boy would always squeal, "It gave me the sugarsssssss!" Sweet.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. To find out more about Rob Kyff and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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