{"id":128,"date":"2012-04-28T09:49:06","date_gmt":"2012-04-28T15:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/fathertime\/?p=128"},"modified":"2012-04-28T09:50:51","modified_gmt":"2012-04-28T15:50:51","slug":"watch-your-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/?p=128","title":{"rendered":"Watch Your Language"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Yesterday afternoon, driving home from Hannah’s school, Hannah was playing on her Nintendo DSi and Lily had fallen asleep. (Guess she didn’t get her nap in at preschool!) I figured this would be a good time to listen to something I wanted to hear on the radio, so I turned on “The World in Words<\/a>” podcast, one of my favorites.<\/p>\n

I always forget how Hannah can be engaged in something (like her DSi) while also listening to something else (like a language podcast). The reporter on the podcast mentioned a Vietnamese band that sings about a couple of topics that are fairly taboo in Vietnamese music: the trauma of war and sexuality.<\/p>\n

Hannah pipes up from the back, “He said a bad word!”<\/p>\n

I responded, “Um, what bad word?”<\/p>\n

Hannah: “I can’t say it! S, E, X–”<\/p>\n

I cut her off here. “Hold on, what do you know about that word?”<\/p>\n

Hannah, now a bit worried that she’s in trouble: “I know you’re not supposed to say it.”<\/p>\n

Me: “Do you know what it means?”<\/p>\n

Hannah, sticking to her story: “Yes, and I know you’re not supposed to say it.”<\/p>\n

Me: “Yes, I get that. But do you know what it means?”<\/p>\n

Hannah: “I don’t want to say what it means.”<\/p>\n

Me: “Hannah, you’re not in trouble. I just need to know if you know what it means.”<\/p>\n

At this point, I’m thinking that we might have the birds-and-the-bees talk right here in the car on the way home from school with Lily snoozing in her car seat.<\/p>\n

Hannah says, “Well, I know it’s part of a song.” I don’t remember precisely what she said next, but I think she sang these lyrics: “She’s BEEP and she knows it.” She definitely said “BEEP.” The girl knows what to do with bad words.<\/p>\n

After a half a second to parse the grammar in those lyrics, I ask, “Does this bad word end in a Y?”<\/p>\n

Hannah answers in the affirmative.<\/p>\n

I breathe a sigh of relief. No need for the birds-and-the-bees talk today. Hannah having a vague understanding of “sexy” is a lot less dangerous than her having a vague understanding of “sex.”<\/p>\n

I’m reminded of another bad word, the one Hannah calls the “S word.” No, not that S word, adults-who-are-reading-this. “Stupid.” She knows she’s not allowed to call someone that.<\/p>\n

With the crisis averted, we continue our drive home. However, as I write this now, I’m thinking I’ll need to ask her where she heard those song lyrics the next time I see her!<\/p>\n

Image: “Interdiction de stationner<\/a>,” Frederic Vissault, Flickr (CC)<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday afternoon, driving home from Hannah’s school, Hannah was playing on her Nintendo DSi and Lily had fallen asleep. (Guess she didn’t get her nap in at preschool!) I figured this would be a good time to listen to something I wanted to hear on the radio, so I turned …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,63,47,62],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-driving","tag-misunderstanding","tag-podcasts","tag-trouble","column","twocol","has-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132,"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions\/132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}