Monday, June 20

veg-ee-tah-bulls

we are working on vegetables in my classes.

i draw them on the board, write the name of each vegetable, and pronounce them in english for my students to hear...

me: "corn, artichoke, potato, peas, green beans, beet..."

student: "what did you just say?"

me: "beet" (which is betterave in french)

much giggling ensues.

another student: "how is that again?"

me: "beet beet beet"

i'm beginning to suspect something is up due to extraordinary amount of giggles - even from the boys.

then it dawns on me.
what they are hearing is:
"penis penis penis".

no WONDER they are giggling.

(*bite [beet] - french slang word referring to the male gentitalia.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

so telling a French speaking person that I'm going to "beat them senseless" might actually be come-on?

Anonymous said...

My husband had a short stint in a Swedish school when his dad worked for the UN. The other kids just couldn't believe his English map of the world--apparently Africa is not a very polite word in Swedish ;-)

Anonymous said...

This is hilarious. Thanks for sharing. No wonder beets are always included in the "crudites" platter.

Elisabeth said...

It's about as good as trying to teach the word "phoque" to American students!