1. I have discovered a new snack to fuel my grading: dried cherries with chocolate chips. I've never been a fan of dried fruit in, say, gorp, but this combination is delicious.
2. We were driving home the other night, negotiating a pizza order, when Stella said, "Noooooooooo! I don't WANT any vege'bles on my pizza!" Later, presented with black olive pizza, she was not pleased. "Noooooo! Clean pizza! Clean pizza!"
3. I cast on a new sock. I was feeling the need for some brainless knitting, because everything I have on the needles right now requires a bit of concentration. I've had some yarn in the sock bin for a long time that I picked up on clearance at KnitPicks -- green and purple and blue. It turns out to make an approximation of vertical stripes with 60 stitches on a size 2 needle. Late at night I was knitting brainlessly and watching this pseudo-striping action unfurl. "What," I wondered to myself, "will happen when I get to the heel? And what if I do a short-row heel instead of a flap heel?" And then I thought, really and truly, "I don't know if I can handle that much excitement!"
4. I might need to get out more.
5. Not tonight, though. Tonight I'm on my own with the kids until late and I'm trying to think of something fun we can do together. There are lots of advantages to spacing kids three years apart, but it does make it harder to find a game everybody can play or a movie everybody wants to watch. Any ideas?
6. Joe and Pete have been listening to the Chronicles of Narnia on CD. It's a set produced by Focus on the Family, and I had a moment of pique when I realized they'd done a little bowdlerizing. Lewis wrote "ass," and they rendered it "idiot." What say you? Would it bug you more to have "ass" in a CD for children, or to realize they'd sanitized C.S. Lewis?
7. I was thinking about how it might go in the other direction. I've certainly seen "bugger" in American children's books, and that would have to be edited right out before they could be sold in the UK. We think of "bugger" as meaning "mildly annoying little thing that's also kind of cute," but a Briton thinks of it as one of the most vulgar things that can come out of a person's mouth. Putting "bugger" in a children's book would be like reading this book at a public library story hour in the US.
More quick takes at Jen's.
Yeah, I've put the kibosh on "bugger" around here because I get a lot of my words from the British, and I hear it in all its vulgarity. Yuck.
One drawback to getting your vocab from British authors is when you innocently ask your down-the-hall dorm mates to "come knock me up when you're ready to go" when you mean, "knock on my door to roust me out". !! (They quickly added to my education.)
Posted by: mandamum | November 16, 2012 at 07:24 PM
When we read the Narnian Chronicles to our kids, we said ass and just explained it was another word for donkey, but also a "grown up word" (what we call swear words). We gave a few examples of how NOT to use it and who not to use it in front of (GRANDMA) until they were older and capable of discernment.
I would be annoyed at the change, but unsurprised since it's a FOTF recording.
Posted by: Linda | November 17, 2012 at 06:09 AM
I'd be annoyed. Are they also going to edit out the part where Puddleglum says they ought to be gay and frolicsome?
I don't object to parents editing while they read aloud, for whatever reason, but it would annoy me that somebody edited it for me. I am very curmudgeonly when people mess with my classic literature.
Posted by: The Sojourner | November 18, 2012 at 06:39 AM
We have those Narnia adaptations too. They're okay, but what I really enjoy are the recordings of the books read by some of the best British actors (think Patrick Stewart, Kenneth Branagh, Jeremy Northam) -- every word, even ass. Around here, the kids know that it means donkey, and have used it in that context, but I've also told them that for some people, it's rude way of saying "bottom", so they shouldn't use it much.
Posted by: MrsDarwin | November 19, 2012 at 11:02 AM
I don't have a problem with it. I was not happy that they left some part out of A Horse and his Boy. I'm not even sure why they left it out. :(
I have a British friend who was appalled when she was visiting a friend and heard her grandmother complain about her fanny being sore!
Posted by: Angela | November 19, 2012 at 11:21 AM
I'd be irate if someone messed with my Narnia. Someone, my sister, I think, gave me the full set of the unabridged audiobooks read by British actors: Kenneth Branagh, Derek Jacobi, Lynn Redgrave. A great production. So worth it.
Posted by: Melanie B | November 22, 2012 at 09:18 AM