Dyslexia and puns

I am dyslexic. I have problem spelling since I was 6. I spelt MILO as OLIM. Maybe partly because I am a left hander, so I am living in my mirror image self. ( not 100% though, because I am not having situs inversus*)

There are strong correlation between dyslexia and left-handers. Something about how our brains are wired. Genetically, lefties are prone to get schizophrenia.  Southpaw are also easily scared... that explains my PTSD. Some of our craziness is caused by our parents and teachers. They tried to 'correct' us. Spanking, hitting just because we use our 'dirty' hand to write (learn). So excuse us for our craziness. Stubborn. Poor handwriting, although my Biology teacher praises my handwriting. I write in block letters so it;s legible, this leads to my rivalry with a fellow classmate. It wasn't me who started it. He is just jealous and starts to verbally abuse me by calling me fat and wrote bad poem about me in our yearbook. Asian 'kiasuness'.

Being dyslexic is sometimes an amusement to my friends. I pronounced SCULPTURE as SCLUPTURE one day and a roar of laughter followed. Adequate is pronounced as AQUEDATE. Blame it on my fascination to architecture. I imagine adequate as something with arches and channels water across valleys. I know adequate means enough, sufficient but that's how I see words. Blame it on brain lateralization.

However, dyslexia drives me to improve my language. When in doubt, I'll just look it up in the internet. Forvo... wikipedia... grammatist... It is said that dyslexics can't understand puns. Really? I like puns. It's true initially, it's hard for us to understand. When I was 10, a friend on mine asked? "Why is the graveyard noisy?" "Because of the coffin'". I took it literally that the coffin talks. Over here, caskets are preferable over coffins. And some doesn't even need a coffin for burial. Back then, I took things literally.

The first time I understand puns was when I am 17. I was reading the Oxford Activator dictionary. It's under jokes. The dictionary gave an example of a joke. "When is a door not a door?" When it is ajar". I laughed alone. When my roommate asked me for a joke for him to tell his English class, I gave him this. But he doesn't really thinks it a joke. So it's not necessary for a non-dyslexic to understand puns better than dyslexics.

Again, not everybody in this region understand puns.


*situs inversus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situs_inversus