Aural Idiosyncrasy

In the movie Stand By Me, there is a scene in which young Gordie is being chased out of a junkyard by the guard dog, Chopper. As Gordie runs away, the junkyard owner shouts to Chopper, "Sic 'em, boy!" Then Gordie's adult voice interrupts the scene and the chase goes into slow motion with the camera focused on the scared and twisted face of Gordie and narrates: "Now he said, 'Sic 'em, boy,' but what I heard was, 'Chopper, sic [certain parts of the anatomy],'" and then the chase resumes at full speed.

It's an amusing little scene, and it's executed extremely well. But then we think about the scene rationally. How likely is it that a person shouts one thing, and we hear something totally different? It's just a play on the popular legend that Chopper was trained to sic certain parts of a person.

I always thought this until today. You see, today, my boss came up to me and said, "Hey Patrick, do you think you could drive out to the hospital?" but what I heard was, "Hey Patrick, how would you like thirty bucks to sit in a waiting room for a bit?"

I attribute the mishearings to high levels of adrenaline.