Being rail thin and really small didn’t hurt him at all. By age eight, my brother’s hitting skills had advanced so rapidly that Jimmy was unquestionably his baseball team’s best hitter even though many of his teammates were 10 years old — as were many of the pitchers on the other teams.

His language skills, however, didn’t develop quite as quickly.

The first time my father threw batting practice to us that spring, my brother — who might’ve weighed 50 pounds with dad’s steel-tipped work boots on and measured four feet tall in mom’s high heels — went to the plate with my much bigger bat. He couldn’t take his normal stance without the bat wobbling and his arms buckling, so my father refused to pitch.

Ever the bullhead, my brother refused to change bats.

“Okay,” my father said, “but at least choke up.”

My brother nodded. My dad started his windup. Jimmy mustered up all his strength and took one hand off the bat.

He then struck his throat with it, made a grunt as if he had been punched in the gut, and threw his head upward.

My brother’s interpretation of “choke up” amused me to no end; it confused me, too. Who would’ve thought that a young boy knowledgeable about baseball would not know that phrase means move your hands higher up on the bat to gain better control of it?

Recently, another misinterpretation amused and confused me. Who would’ve thought adults would interpret the advice to “eat a wide range of foods” to mean eat junk along with healthy food?

Yet enough interpret the advice incorrectly that the American Heart Association addressed the error in an article published in the August issue of the journal Circulation.

The article explains that there is “little consensus” as to what “eating a variety of foods” means. In fact, a review of related research done over the last 17 years discovered that the consumption of refined grains, processed foods, and sugary drinks was actually higher in areas where the eat-a-variety-of-foods advice was stressed than where it was not.

As a result, Dr. Marcia C. de Oliveira Otto, assistant professor of epidemiology, human genetics, and environmental science at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston and lead author of the aforementioned article, fears that “Eating a more diverse diet might be associated with eating a greater variety of both health[ful] and unhealth[ful] foods . . . [and] may lead to increased food consumption and obesity.”

If Dr. Otto’s fear is founded, there are adults who actually believe that for better health you need to balance your consumption of apples with Apple Jacks, oatmeal with Oreos, salads with Snicker’s Bars — which is why this column will clarify the title of a new diet book, the Flat Belly Diet!

First, some good news. As co-creators of Liz Vaccariello and Cynthia Sass claim, follow the diet faithfully and you will lose inches off your body measurements in just four days and notice a boost of energy level as well. And you will lose weight.

You have to. To begin the diet, the authors suggest a severe restriction of 1,200 calories a day for the first four days. Since even the most petite women should be consuming more cals than that per day, immediate weight loss occurs.

Much of that weight loss, however, is water weight — but such a loss certainly shrinks your belly. You also don’t add salt to foods during this time and avoid good but “gassy” foods like beans, broccoli, and onions, two other measures that should immediately shrink the size of your belly.

But unless you’re really overweight and exceptionally motivated, you’re more likely to encounter a unicorn on a unicycle on the D&L Trail than lose 15 pounds in 32 days, as advertisements proclaim.

But a bigger complaint about the book is the use of “flat” in the title. I don’t care which dictionary you consult, “flat” is defined as smooth and even and without bumps. I don’t care what diet you choose, it will shrink the size of your stomach, but it’s not making it flat.

Consider my situation to understand why not.

While my abdomen is clearly concave from the ribcage to the navel and the upper part is as defined at age 57 as it was when I was 47, 37 or even 27, my lower abdomen is far less than flat. Below the navel — much like a marsupial — I have a bit of a pouch.

That bulge bothers me to no end although clothing conceals it. In fact, my 32-inch waist blue jeans sag if I don’t use a belt.

Why share such information? To keep misinformation at bay. If a 57-year-old male, let’s say, follows the Flat Belly Diet! and finally fits into those pants he last wore 15 years ago, I want him to be thrilled about it.

Not feeling like a failure because “the pouch” is still present.