Published on 12, July, 2020
I am hoping that at least some of you will see the funny side of the following and be able to laugh with me, or at least smile knowingly.
On Saturday, I happened to be within earshot of a telephone conversation between my son and my mother (he'd got her on speakerphone). I heard her telling him that she had used the JustEat app to place an order for some groceries from Sainsbury's, but that before she had managed to complete the order, she had urgently needed to visit the bathroom. My mother then says that she was amazed at how quickly it was delivered. After a brief exchange of puzzled glances, my son and I quickly realised that my mother was referring to the speed of the JustEat delivery, and (thankfully) not to her bathroom activity.
Conversations with my mother can often seem confusing and utterly bizarre. I just hope that if I live long enough to be the age that my mother is, I don't end up causing my son as much confusion as my mother causes us.
I'm with your mum. I wouldn't use a word 'delivery' to do with solids or liquids arriving in the toilet pan... It is something that comes to the front door, or through the letterbox. Some people are quite accurate in the words they use, but their brain works too fast and makes more connections than we can keep up with. It is hard to know which points to include when telling a story as there are lots of contextual things which are important to me, but may not help the other person understand the story I'm relating. Inferences (that there is another definition of, or way to use, 'delivery') wouldn't occur to me.