My Family Didn’t Know The Word “Sigh” For Decades

Okay, I admit this is a weird one.  Hear me out.Or... read me out?  I don't know.  Anyway, so yeah, my family didn't know the word "sigh" for a long time.  What is this malarkey? I'll tell ya.

So when I was growing up, it was the eighties. Peak kid time, really.  And of course, I was a brat from time to time, just like a lot of other kids.

"No, you can't stay inside all day.  Go outside and play."

**Exasperated noise**

"Don't you 'humph' at me!"

Yeah, they said 'humph'.  I didn't know anything else for ages.  SO, that meant that reading books was a bit confusing every now and then.  A character in a book would "sigh", and I would have no idea what that meant, but I would just go along with it. Of course, I could have looked it up in the gal-danged dictionary (we didn't have the interwebz back then, kids), but I guess I always forgot. You know, you'd do that thing where you'd underline a word you didn't understand and then go look it up later?

I guess I never got around to that as a kid with the word "sigh".  Queue an awkward encounter in High School.  Take a moment to picture it, it's a cold day in November, kids are standing outside the building waiting to get in.  I've got my book, reading it while standing next to my friends.  Bell rings, it's time to go in.  The usual smell of BO and feet hits for a second, and then I turn to my friend.

"What does "sigh" mean?"

I might have pronounced it "see-gh", I'm not going to pull back now.

"You mean "sigh"? It's that thing where you go this - *sighs at me*"

"......................Ooooooooh."

And there it was, one of the moments I have felt the stupidest.  But my friend was nice about it, there wasn't judgement at least. But you know that as soon as I got home, I told my sister what I had learned.  She seemed skeptical. Mom and Dad didn't seem to care.  They continued calling it "humphing" whether the word was "sigh" or not.

My family might be weird, though. My grandmother was convinced the state of Hawaii was pronounced "Huh-why-yuh"  her whole life.

Did your family have any "special" words?  Or did you guys call something different than everyone else did?

Sighingly yours,
Behka