Thursday, May 26, 2011

$#*! my sons (will) say



With apologies to a certain Twitter feed, although when it comes down to it, this post doesn't really bear much of a resemblance....

I've written about the boys' school before. Haut Lac is a fairly unique school. It doesn't quite follow the English system (for that, head down the road toward Montreux and take a right into St. George's, with Harry Potter-esque uniforms and all), nor is it really a typical international school system. But, it has a lot of English teachers, and hews closest to the English style. This is really going to ruin the boys' American English skills.*


  • They're already saying they'll do something "straight away" when they're going to do it with some urgency.
  • What do the the Brits have against articles
    • Here's a sample sentence from Elliot's most recent "Reading is Fun" book: "People who have been injured are taken to hospital in the ambulance." 
    • Maybe it's not the absence of articles that's a problem, but the lack of consistency. Shouldn't it be either "People who have been injured are taken to a hospital in the ambulance," or "People who have been injured are taken to hospital in the ambulance?" 
    • Another example: Under the British scheme, when the kids grow up, they will go to university, not to a university....
  • Photo quiz: What's this?

    • No, it's not a ladybug, it's a ladybird. You know, because of the beak and feathers and all....
  • Photo quiz #2: What do you call the green part of the uniform that the boys are wearing in this photo?

    • A lot of you may have gotten this right. It's not a sweatshirt, it's a jumper. Actually, the Brits may have something here. Sweatshirt is a kind of gross word/description when you think about it!
  • Brilliant! Okay, I always thought this was the British way of saying "great!" But, I've come to believe it means something more along the lines of "okay, that will do" or "that's acceptable" or "it meets my needs." I guess it's been watered down over the years? In that case, it's no worse than how we Americans have utterly ruined the definition of the word "awesome."
  • Mum. Okay, this one is really cute. The kids have not taken to calling Laura "mum" yet, however.
  • Brits don't play sports, they play Sport.
  • Of course, you all know cookies are biscuits.
Well, there's more, but that will do for now. The boys haven't picked up everything. They are mostly amused by the term ladybird, although Calvin sometimes uses it interchangeably with ladybug now. They do say straight away, jumper and sport. Not brilliant or mum. They day they stop using articles will be the end of me.


* We've been reading the How to Train Your Dragon books in which the protagonist speaks the dragon language called Dragonese. Ever since then, Elliot has taken to calling British English "Britishese" and American English "Americanese."

1 comment:

  1. ha- brilliant post. I'm going to teach Dahlia to skip using articles straight away.

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