DEAR ABBY: The letter about church bulletin bloopers in a recent column reminded me of a funny thing that happened in our church some time ago. It made me glad that I had learned to speak our language by rote as a child. Just imagine the agony foreign-born adults must undergo in learning how to speak English, with all the inconsistencies in pronouncing words with similar spellings -- with "ough" in them, for example.
In this instance, a priest visiting from India was saying Mass, and typically the priest reads the Gospel aloud. This Gospel reading was about a woman who was preparing to bake bread when Jesus came to visit. Naturally, she suspended her preparations then, and the priest continued to read "... she put her 'duff' on the table."
I don't think the priest ever understood why that was greeted with such laughter. -- R.F. GOTTSACKER, EDINA, MINN.