The words have changed or is he going crazy…

It’s a black and white short film. It could be a Twilight Zone episode. Here ya go… A man gets up in the morning and his wife says something like “Good morning, Dear. Your mailbox is ready.” He’s puzzled because she must mean “breakfast” not mailbox. He lets it go and heads off to work. He keeps hearing the wrong words being used on the radio, in the office, everywhere. As the show goes on, more and more words are being replaced with the wrong nouns and verbs. Every time he says something, people get confused at what he’s saying since he’s using the “wrong” words. The episode ends with the man being tutored by a lady using flash cards with pictures on them. She holds up a card with something like a car on it. The man has a mental struggle for a moment and says “dog..?” The lady says “Yes, very good.” No explanation is given as to why he lost his vocabulary or why everybody else’s changed. Really interesting premise. Please help me figure this one out.

5 thoughts on “The words have changed or is he going crazy…

      1. if it’s anything else, somebody has some ‘splaining to do to (teleplay writer) Rockne S. Bannon. but i am pretty sure this is the TV episode you saw. except that the incipient linguistic havoc is signaled by the neighbor using the word “encyclopedia” when telling the main character (played by Robert Klein) that his dog just had an unusual number of puppies. i’m not sure where you’re getting the breakfast/mailbox thing.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *