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Unless you’re a linguist (or any other incarnation of a language expert), learning a language will likely be just a skill to get by in life.

Now, if you do focus on the journey and not the destination, however, you will learn just how fun it is to learn a language. Especially if you’re somewhere between the ages of 2 and 6 when you learn complex words and mispronounce them with equal yet entertaining complexity.

And then your parents laugh about it with the rest of the world because social media requires a sacrifice.

#1

Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

mom_tho Report

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    #2

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    pro_worrier_ Report

    BrownTabby
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    As a former food service worker, that would have made my entire month.

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    #3

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    MelvinofYork Report

    One of the superpowers that humans have is to soak in knowledge and information in the early stages of life. Language is one of the major things that we acquire as kids and continue to refine as we grow older. This happens automatically and requires no formal teaching. As long as they are surrounded by language, it will come to them eventually.

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    #4

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    BunAndLeggings Report

    BrownTabby
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They liked it better than Pirates of Penzance.

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    #5

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    MediocreMamaa Report

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    #6

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    mmnke Report

    Jeff White
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Have to agree, that will never not be funny.

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    It is important to note that surrounded by language means interaction. Parents and other people (not just adults, but kids too) do still have to interact with the kid in order for them to pick up the language and to be able to use it for communication. In fact, it’s just as easy for them to acquire multiple languages this way, as long as it’s done in the early stages in life for maximum effect.

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    #7

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    LydiaYKang Report

    Janissary35680
    Community Member
    Premium
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    A friend's 5 yo daughter burst into the house from the backyard announcing she'd found a "bird leaf". It was a seagull feather.

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    #8

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    elseloop Report

    BrownTabby
    Community Member
    1 year ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    TBT when I flew Qantas to Japan and found that their OFFICIAL pronunciation in Japanese - as in, the one they use on all their Japanese documentation and in their Japanese inflight announcements - sounds like “cünt åss”. They are Australian, I guess.

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    #9

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    XplodingUnicorn Report

    Mark
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It’s easier to get a pear tree on the black market. And isn’t bird trafficking supposed to be really profitable?

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    And as is with every journey, learning a language comes gradually. Kids will start off from babbling and move on to monosyllabic and polysyllabic words, then will venture into building simple two-word sentences, then add words to build longer sentences ad infinitum.

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    In the same manner, they will also experiment with and practice languages, leading them to make mistakes in all facets of language use, including mispronunciation.

    #10

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    GreyDeLisle Report

    glowworm2
    Community Member
    1 year ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There is this hilarious video where a little girl is eating puto, which is a Filipino rice cake as her mom is Filipino, but her dad who is Colombian is not comfortable hearing her happily declare “It’s puto!”This gets even funnier when she says it around her grandma. “It’s big puto!”🤣

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    #11

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    deloisivete Report

    Midnight (she/her)
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My younger sister, who is a total dinosaur geek, corrects me and my family on dinosaur facts all the time (and is usually right) yet still manages to mispronounce this one.

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    #12

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    Christine_V_C Report

    Sue
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My daughter called them Mommy's yittle piddos. I caught her sticking a whole box of them on the hall wall.

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    To paint a picture of both making mistakes and the gradual learning of a language, consider this: a kid first learns by mimicking the language. So, if they learn the word feet, they will for a time say it perfectly. But then, they might revert to foots.

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    Now, saying revert is not really accurate—they have actually moved forward, just that they started applying grammatical conventions instead of just mimicking.

    #13

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    graystock007 Report

    Local Idiot
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My dog is currently looking puppiciously out the window

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    #14

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    AnecdtlBrthCtrl Report

    At this point, the kid understood what the singular form of feet was, and they understood that plural words take an s at the end. Hence feets. But it was wrong because English is a hot mess of a language that follows rule sets from ten if not more languages, and folks who learn it as a foreign language have to deal with the constant facepalming when they realize that buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo is a grammatically correct sentence.

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    #16

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    reccastle Report

    BrownTabby
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There are multiple people in my life who repeated even ruder expressions that they learned from their respective parents in the car. 🤣

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    #17

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    Boiarski Report

    Rabbit Of ill Portent(she/her)
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My mom says that's how I used to pronounce it too! I gotta show her this one lol

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    #18

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    raoulvilla Report

    Shark Lady
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My daughter used to pronounce them as staw bees.

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    And so, learning a language happens pretty much in the same gradual way, no matter if it’s language production or reception. And this is where mishearing and mispronunciation come into play.

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    When children learn languages, they will sometimes learn to pronounce them just like they would other words they already know. Hence, cheese crisis and whack-a-mole like guacamole.

    #19

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    DragginFatherB Report

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    #21

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    moyermama Report

    Abbie Daigle
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    okay but petition to pronounce medicine like fettuccine now

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    It’s this similarity that empowers kids to learn further, applying the rules and paradigms they know to words that the English language ends up ruining for them.

    So, yes, it’s quite logical to pronounce fettuccine as if it rhymed with medicine, mishear French hens as henchmens and, instead of saying heebie jeebies, you say Hebrew Bee Gees.

    #22

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    AnecdtlBrthCtrl Report

    disarrae
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    username checks out with this one

    disarrae
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    username checks out on this one.

    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Record it. Years from now you'll want to remember looking as you do now

    Meowzers!
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    As a child I used to pronounce milk as Blunk, and for years, when milk was needed, we would say "fetch the Blunk." It only stopped being that way once i hit my later teens when seemingly overnight milk reverted back to being called milk.

    Gustav Gallifrey
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yet, when i do it, you call the cops on me.

    Elliet Fitz
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I once knew a little girl with autism who pronounced milk “nook”.

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    #24

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    meantomyself Report

    glowworm2
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Well, there is mole sauce which is also pronounced that way, so it makes sense.

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    And that, ladies and gentlemen, is fun in more ways than one. Not only are these tiny linguistic mishaps cute and adorable, it also shows the beauty of watching kids grow up and grasp concepts that are mundane to us. Yet, how they experience it might just defamiliarize us, broadening our own perspectives, thus continuing the cycle of learning and better understanding the world.

    #25

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    itsdeenalang Report

    #26

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    Lottie_Poppie Report

    Lauren S
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    For anyone that is thinking of extended breastfeeding, be careful what you call it as they will ask for it in public after they learn to talk a bit. We called it boo boo. No idea why.

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    #27

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    CoffeeNCrusts Report

    MontanaMariner
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    At around 2 years old, I screamed "BUNNY MILK!" for a few days until my parents figured out it was Nestlé Strawberry Milk powder I was after. Their mascot is a rabbit.

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    In fact, kids are an amazing source of understanding the world. Because of their unrestricted way of thinking outside the box, they often find very smart, and sometimes funny ways of expressing their problem solving skills. And that’s just what we see on the surface—inside their heads, tons upon tons of processes are going on, and creativity is just one of many results that follow.

    #28

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    saucymincks Report

    BrownTabby
    Community Member
    1 year ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The Japanese word for “cook” (as in a person who cooks professionally, not the act of cooking) sounds like “cøck” too.

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    #30

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    Madmommies2 Report

    Khavrinen
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Just be grateful you didn't give them to her at a wedding.

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    So, with all that said, have you ever heard kids mispronounce the heck out of something to a degree that made you crack up? Why not share those instances in the comment section below!

    Be sure to upvote the listicle, and if you want more, then check out another of our listicles about the times kids delivered stories in their own words that could only ever result in awkward and hilarious misunderstandings.

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    #32

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    joey_stan Report

    Laura Gillette
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I thought bubble juice was the stuff in the bottles that come with bubble wands, for blowing bubbles... It's like juuuuust barely soapy water.

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    #33

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    4MamaPajama Report

    Stephanie Did It
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I still call it a merote, and eat "melly melon" because that's what my 46 yr old daughter called it when she was three. And because she now owns and directs a daycare, we still go potty and frequently point upwards, exclaiming "Airplane!"

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    #34

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    momjeansplease Report

    Kinsey Kimera
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My neighbor's kids thought the background singers in Circle of Life were chanting "Pink pajamas, penguins on the bottom".

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    #35

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    MichaelVogel1 Report

    ToastedFroggy
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My granddaughter used to say punjelly for a pb&j sandwich. 🤣

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    #36

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    oneawkwardmom Report

    Chewie Baron
    Community Member
    Premium
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    But if the toddler is asking for Wunch, who is guarding Hades?

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    #40

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    momtransparent1 Report

    Silre (she/her)
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I had a child at the preschool where I worked say yehyo instead of yellow and it was the most adorable thing I've ever experienced.

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    #42

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    AnecdtlBrthCtrl Report

    Leigh
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My sister as a kid had the runs and announced she had die-ah-D-ah! Instead of diarrhea.! We still call it that.

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    #43

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    CGill85 Report

    rmandevi831
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Swing and a miss for the auto-censor. From now on, I declare that the F-bomb can now be spelled "KFC" on this forum. What the KFC is going on here?

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    #44

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    vlevhh Report

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If he pronounces "cat" as "tat" maybe a lot of people are curious about mom's artwork.

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    #46

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    fozmeadows Report

    #47

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    editingemily Report

    I'm.Just.A.Girl
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I called escalators alligators as a child forever.

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    #48

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    HairAfire Report

    Stephanie Did It
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    These make a lot of sense and it's easy to understand how new dialects spring up in different communities!

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    #49

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    HomeWithPeanut Report

    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Maybe your toddler helped to program the "speech to text" function on my band friend's phone, because he's always talking about the sex parts.

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    #50

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    Hilohaw Report

    Matthew Currie
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My daughter when little would remark "the problem is dissolved." Many years later that's become standard.

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    The way children naturally absorb and experiment with language can sometimes lead to adorable and unexpected pronunciations. This process is well illustrated by collections that highlight the funniest moments in early speech development, offering insight into how kids internalize sounds and meanings.

    Exploring such compilations can enrich your understanding of this fascinating aspect of language acquisition, as seen in common toddler mispronunciations.

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    #53

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    michimama75 Report

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    #56

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    BeingLisa831 Report

    Robin Roper
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My niece couldn't pronounce Great Grandmama; she became Greatmama. And you know, the name fit.

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    #57

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    davatron5000 Report

    General Anaesthesia
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    To be honest, it's kinda weird that she asks for that sandwich :)

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    #58

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    HaleyCarrots Report

    just me
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I worked with a 5 year old that called it eltmell. In my head it's been eltmell for almost a decade now.

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    #59

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    ElyKreimendahl Report

    Lauren S
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I hope you asked them to try to ask again but kinder before you got the juice. My kiddo does this sometimes, demands food or drink now. I think he’s trying to convey how hungry or thirsty he is. But he always has to say something along the lines of, could you please get me juice? Before I’ll get it.

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    #61

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    notmythirdrodeo Report

    #62

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    bishopofdoubt Report

    #63

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    manofbird Report

    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My son came home from playing with the little girls next door and announced that he knew what a BUHGINA was.

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    #64

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    yeffers Report

    #65

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    Bonitaf59 Report

    #66

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    Autumn_Onapoea Report

    Stephanie Did It
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Sure beats the rather obvious alternative!

    #67

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    PiecesofRees Report

    BarkingSpider
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I still call them NemNems thanks to various children.

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    #68

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    GenYMama Report

    #69

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    KimmyyS_110 Report

    Not-a-Clue (she/her)
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I looked after a small child with this exact same speech issue. We were reading Hickory Dickory Dock together one time, when the lad pointed to the picture and announced "my daddy's got a big clock!" We told daddy when he arrived to collect his son. He wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or proud.

    #70

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    LargeMa67911173 Report

    Robert Millar
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Well, now we have a nice name for little titties.

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    #71

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    JillianKJacobs Report

    Praea Kitten
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The "doots" make more sense with baby sharts

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    #72

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    Streamer_Leera Report

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Well, it is a pretty s****y store, IMHO.

    #73

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    jilltataraworld Report

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Based on websites about misheard song lyrics I've got to conclude that the kid was better at coming close than a lot of adults.

    #74

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    adamhambrick Report

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    #76

    Kids-Mispronouncing-Words-Phrases

    emmymadeinjapan Report

    Philly Bob Squires
    Community Member
    1 year ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My neice called them "Pop Pop's Ami Dolphins. Dad was a fan of the Miami Dolphins so they were definitely "HIS ami Dolphins!"

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