When you have a guy in the house who wears hearing aids (me), you find that words that sound alike can alter communication in unpredictable ways. I laughed at the structure of the argument that Prof. Harold Hill uses to persuade the people of River City that there is a sort of corruption in town that they should pay attention to. "...and that begins with T, which rhymes with P and that stands for "POOL".
But if the woman of the house says "looks like rain", Hearing Guy can believe that she said,'something something pain'. (She has been bothered by back and side pain lately but she is slowly healing.)
Those initial consonants carry a great deal of meaning but they only last a fraction of a second. They are easy to mis-hear, especially if we are separated by the length of the house.
We learned decades ago that the practice of "active listening" where what is being heard is repeated, best in a paraphrased form that includes some element of the stated feelings the speaker seems to be expressing, is very useful for understanding the cognitive and emotional state of another person. So, if I have any doubt about what was said and what was meant, I often say back the basics of what I think she said.
About half the time, my version makes her laugh since it is about something she didn't mention and hasn't thought of.
