A teacher, Lisa Trewhitt Earby of Cleveland, Tennessee, tells about reading one-on-one with a first grade student who encountered the words "thank you" for the first time in print. Hoping the student would use some of her newly learned reading strategies, Lisa gave the girl plenty of time to work out the words herself. After a few moments, though, Lisa decided to tell her the word "thank." When she didn't respond, Lisa said more emphatically, "Thank." The little girl responded in her native Tennessee dialect, "I AM thanking. I AM thanking." (1)

The little girl got "thinking" confused with "thanking" just because in parts of the South, they are pronounced the same way.

Today, maybe we ought to "thank," I mean "think," about Thanksgiving. In 1955, Bob Hope was approached about starring in …