Skip to main content

Sorry It Has WHAT?


As a former English teacher, and native Anglophone, I am perpetually annoyed at the improper use of the language.


Let's take much vs. many.

I have MUCH time and I have MANY minutes.
NOT I have many time and much minutes.



IRREGARDLESS.
It's just regardless people.

Supposibly ---It's so wrong I am not even sure how it exists.

And the DOUBLE NEGATIVE.

If you don't have no time---that means you 
HAVE 
TIME!

When someone speaks like this I cringe, but I don't actually SAY anything because it's not really hurting anyone.

But there was one exception......  

A couple of summers ago, my local Library was hosting a family reading session that explored the theme of "under the ocean".  



I live in a very multicultural community, and the staff reflected in both the customers and staff of the Library.  I don't go often, but on a trek home from the mall, Youngest and I swung through to take advantage of the air conditioning.  The story time room you see was in the basement.  The nice, cold, basement.

The lady presenting the event introduced herself a Svetlana, her Eastern European accent evident in her English.

"He-lo every-won!  Pleese, we will stat wit a game to ghess the sea creature. I vill gif you clus and you ghess."

I figured it was a good time for me to scroll through my email on my phone while he sat, heard a story and got cooled off before we hit the road.  

Svetlana began her clues, the kids started shouting guesses and I started to tune them out and zone in on my screen.  Much clapping ensued when each sea creature described was guessed, and I stepped to the back of the room, grabbed a chair and sat.

By the forth e-mail, I was aware of the noise, or more accurately, the absence of it. The room had gone still. I could hear Svetlana talking animatedly at the front of the room, and tried to tune into what she was saying.

You know! I know you do!
It is soft, and very long and wave around in the water.
It does not have fins but some people do eat them!

I was confused.  How hard could this be?  

And then I heard it....

It has 8 long TESTICLES and waves them around in like this!  She wiggled her arms like seaweed over her head.

These TESTICLES can be as long as a football field! 

More waving.

I scanned the room.  

Looks of horror and confusion.  

"Come on keeds, you know this."  Still more waving.

"Their TESTICLES can grab you and...."

Parents started to raise their hands, and I suspected a few cell phones sat at 9-1- at this point.

I shot from my seat.  

TENTACLES! 

Now I was waving MY arms.

Her eyes found me at the back of the room, arms waving.

"I'm sorry, were you guessing?"

I whipped my arms behind my back. 

TENTACLES! 
TENTACLES! 
 I think you mean TEN-TA-CLES!

"What was I saying?"

"Not TENTACLES, that's for sure,"I  heard a mother mumble a few rows ahead of me.



Svetlana laughed it off, blaming the English language for its "quirky intricacies" and story time continued. Most of the kids remained oblivious.

As I exited, Svetlana stopped me.

"Tank you for correcting my English.  It is not my first language.  I never knew this word in English before and so now I do."

(Aaaaaannnnd now so does a lot of small children who are probably having very interesting conversations with their parents.)

When I asked Youngest what he thought of our Library time, he replied with:
How do you make an octopus laugh?
I dunno honey, how?
You give him TEN TICKLES!
Oh the quirky intricacies of the English language.....










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mind the Gap

I have been browsing my writing. Just a few samples here and there. Noting the gaps--like the big one where I posted on the eve of 2020 not knowing a global pandemic would shut down the world and then didn't post again until just last week. Feels like that would have been a good time to write. During a pandemic.  Write about survival mode, collecting oldest and his gf from their rental to camp out in our basement bedroom for five months, the middle home as college was closed and R and I getting a week to figure out how to be online college instructors. There were days of washing groceries, yelling at my mom and step-dad to get their asses home from Florida before the boarder closed and scouring the internet for toilet paper and masks. It was exhausting and scary and bitterness flowed unhampered at every #qualitytimewiththekiddos" posting of crafts and puzzles and tiktok dances from those who found themselves at home, not working.  It was all hands on deck at our place wi...
Post a Comment
There is more good stuff--keep reading»

Guidepost #7 Cultivating Play and Rest

The sky, dark blue fading to purple, then  pink and orange---in this instant --- it is hard to tell if it is the morning or night.  Perhaps in contradiction to the title, I am up early to write.  This is my playtime.  Writing is something that brings me both joy and a sense of accomplishment.  The Adult Day Treatment Program was my what kept me anchored to reality during the early months of my collapse.  Learning about anxiety, medications, depression, relaxation all made sense tome--had value--and could be immediately applied to my situation.  I took copious notes, I participated in class, I reflected, I did what I know best---see problem---tackle problem. What was difficult for me, was understanding the value of our "recreation" hour (a.k.a. crafts or games). I remember feeling a bit like I was in a movie or on some gag reel and I was the only one not in on the joke as people moved to pick up half painted wooden b...
Post a Comment
There is more good stuff--keep reading»

Keeping Afloat in Darkness - When Robin Williams is Gone

A few weeks ago Robin Williams was everywhere you looked. People were desperate for details; to find the one thing that assured them that his situation was so different from theirs that they are safe; that it could never be them. But if you suffer from depression, the suicide of such a brilliant, successful, individual; part of our lives for so many years and responsible for so many laughs; looks like a leak in your boat. A friend asked me, "Ok but no one knows what the future holds.  Could he not see that?" For someone drowning in the dark spiral of depression, there is no future. There is only now. There is only nothing.  The boat is gone.  You are under. It is not about your spouse or your friends or your kids or career or fans or dogs or anything.  When the darkness squeezes it is all about now.  And now is nothing.  It is bleak and empty and so dark, you cannot see a bottom, or edges or surface ---just darkness. "Some...
4 comments
There is more good stuff--keep reading»