You know what i meant....

Lets face it we have all done it: Said something really stupid or without thinking that either leaves the people around us scratching their heads in bemusement, or embarrassment, or rolling around the floor in uncontrollable laughter at the beauty of the various conversational pitfalls of the English language. However it’s when it starts to become more of habit and occurs with alarming regularity, along with the desire to see the ground open up in front of you, that the alarm bells start to ring. I can assure you that all of the following stories are true and there are countless others I could easily have recalled. Trish is a real person and has been my partner for the last 7 years or so.

A detailed look throughout any published dictionary will, alas, fail to provide the reader with the appropriate noun that describes this socially embarrassing but highly amusing malaise. In the absence of any appropriate word, I have therefore invented my own. I will in due course submit this to the Oxford English Dictionary for inclusion in their next edition:

Trishism n a series of words, or a phrase, that when spoken may lead to temporary paralysis, usually swiftly followed by uncontrollable laughter, for anyone within earshot. (Origin: Trish Vowles, Somerset, England, 2001 onwards)

The first recorded Trishism was in late summer 2001. At the time Trish was working at the local Pub and was stood at the far end of the bar with two other members of staff. The three of them were chatting away quite happily between themselves - all seemingly oblivious to the traditional roles and responsibilities of why people are employed behind a bar - as the queue of people waiting to be served grew longer. After 10 minutes of unsuccessfully trying to break up this coven by a variety of techniques (dropping ashtrays, feigning death etc), I decided that the only way of getting any service was to take out my mobile phone and call the pub. The guy next to me smirked, he already had his pint. I heard the phone ringing behind the bar and Trish reached over to answer it:
“Good Evening, The George at Nunney”
“Oh hi there Trish, I was just wondering if there was any chance of being served at the end of the bar?”
“Sorry I can’t, I’m on the phone at the moment”

I thought the poor chap next to me was about to explode as first a fine mist of beer followed quickly by a machine gun like coughing noise exploded from his mouth. The call was finished and the comedy value of the moment reached totally unexpected new heights when Trish promptly served someone else.

Once the dam had been breached there was no stopping the flow of Trishisms. It appeared that no situation, however routine, was immune to them and I quickly ran out of room storing them as notes on my mobile phone. There are a few however that do not require any artificial memory to store or recall them.

A few years ago we were on the ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo. I seem to recall that we were about half the way across the channel and were sat having a coffee in the Ships lounge:
“Don’t forget Trish, France is an hour ahead of us”
An anxious look at her watch was followed by:
“How do you know, we haven’t got there yet?”


A few days later we were sat in the Piano Bar at the campsite we were staying at. It was early evening and quite crowded with parents enjoying a last few moments of peace and quiet before the swimming pools started emptying out. The air was heavy with the aroma of half a dozen joss sticks that were burning throughout the bar and people were talking loudly to make them-selves heard over the noise of the piano. The kids had only been in the bar once and hadn’t seemed to have enjoyed it – a point that I thought I’d raise with their mother:
“So, Trish why don’t the children like it in here?”
At that precise moment, like a well-rehearsed moment from a film, the piano man stopped tinkling the ivories and the conversation in the bar fell silent. Unfortunately Trish had already launched into her reply at the volume level that she thought was necessary:
“It’s because they don’t like the smell of incest”.

We left the bar quite quickly after that and for the next ten days I could see people nudging and whispering to each other whenever we went past.

My favourite all time Trishism happened only a few months ago. I was driving us both back from dropping her daughter off somewhere and Trish’s mobile started ringing. Out came the handbag and the search for the phone began in amongst an unending emptying of sweet wrappers, till receipts, clothes pegs and other assorted strange objects that the bag contained. Eventually the phone fell silent as the caller gave up.
“That’s odd!” said Trish,
“I must have left it at home..."