Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Baby Einstein

I've never paid much attention to the words reflected in the show until yesterday.

We were watching Baby MacDonald when the word "plowing" came out. Immediately I sms-ed my part-time (non salaried) English teacher aka my sister to reconfirm that it should read "plough." Sister did say said it's American spelling, then she continued with "I still pronounce my 'W' as double U and 'Z' as Zee. All thanks to Sesame Street." A comfort for myself, I am not that easily influenced as she is, I pronounce the way it should be. OMG! I've been exposing both my kids to Sesame Street, perhaps I should start tuning in to BBC

Then it reminded me of this song "Why Can't The English" from My Fair Lady, where Professor Higgins was complaining to Colonel Pickering (which led me close to tears).

The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely
disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their
Greek. Iance every Frenchman knows
his language fro "A" to "Zed"
The French never care what they do, actually,
as long as they pronounce in properly.
Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.
And Hebrews learn it backwards,
which is absolutely frightening.
But use proper English you're regarded as a freak.
Why can't the English,
Why can't the English learn to speak?

Ps. No sensitive and hard feelings please...

Today's episode was on Wordsworth. And they have a Signing portion in the video. I bursts out laughing when I saw how they sign for dog. No wonder Angeline was saying it's better to watch the video, I saw a few signs like 'tree, flowers,swing,cat' and it registers in my mind. Whereas the book that I borrowed from the library - I tried to do it to remember, can't at all. Looking forward to learning more things from the videos that she'd lend me.

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