You see, being in a foreign country, I’m actually learning more English than I would if I were still in the UK.

Take one of those words.

Lacksidaisical. Great word, isn’t it. Meaning lazy/not paying attention.

Except it’s not. I’ve used this word so many times over the years. Pronouncing it lack – see – daisy – ical. No one has ever said, “no, you’ve got it wrong.” Of course, I’ve never actually written it down as I’ve never had to use it when writing but, if I had, I would have spelt it as I did above.

Today (courtesy of Lola) I find that after 40-odd years of using it, I would have spelt it wrong if I had written it and, worse, I’ve been pronouncing it wrong all this time! It is, of course, lackadaisical. There is no “see” in it at all! In fact, neither in the spelling nor the pronunciation is there an “s” after the “lack”!

And then there is the word “cutch”. We used it in my family a lot. “Give me a cutch,” we’d say, meaning give me a cuddle or a hug. Or, “cutch up to me” – cuddle up to me.

Of course, we lived on the Welsh border and so, I suppose, it was inevitable that we would “borrow” some Welsh words. And, previously unbeknown to me, this is a Welsh word and, in fact, the word is cwtch (the “w” sounding like an English “u”).

So, all this time, I knew some Welsh words (I think there were others that we used but don’t remember them now).

Do you have any words like this?