510. Firkin
© Bruce Goodman 4 March 2015






Charlie was all of fourteen. He had to prepare something to read aloud in class. His teacher gave the extract to be read.

He read it through to himself several times that evening, because his turn to read was the following day. In the extract it said, I went to the shop and ordered a firkin of beer. Charlie didn’t know what a firkin of beer was, so he looked it up. He decided he wouldn’t say “firkin”; he would say “barrel”, because no one in the class would know what a firkin was either. Besides, “firkin” sounded like something else.

So the next day he stood up to read in class, and he said, I went to the shop and ordered a firkin barrel.


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