Wednesday, January 4, 2012

One Hot Pussy

It's my own fault.  I bring these things upon myself.

The 8th grade students that were formerly making my life miserable have mysteriously turned over a new leaf and they are currently almost entertaining me.  I just have to stay one step ahead of the biggest mouth in the room and everything is fine.

We are currently working on the most bizarre unit I have:  the body.  There isn't a chapter in my book for this, so I have to wing it.  And it seems that the more bizarre we get with aches and pains, the more they learn the words.

Because in French, to say that something hurts is more difficult than in English.  Ironic, because if I am hurting in France, the last thing I want to do is the mental gymnastics to make it come out right.  If my leg hurts, I can't say "my leg hurts" because it would mean that my leg is detached from my body and flogging me.  I must say "I have bad in the leg".  Which brings no end of hysterics when I try to teach this unit.

Along with explaining your pain comes the explanation that you are hot, cold, tired, wrong, thirsty, etc.  All requiring the verb to have, rather than to be.  So, I can't say " I am hot", I must say "I have hot".

It's all very ridiculous to try to convince 14 year olds that this really is what you must say and if you say it the wrong way, you will be not only wrong, but in some cases, you will be offensive to someone.

Because, if you say "I am hot", rather than "I have hot", well, then you are saying that you are sexually hot for the person you are talking to.  And of course, I never explain that piece or I'd never get the right answer, ever.

Today, someone decided that Justin Bieber was hot.  She does anything she can to incorporate him into her work.  So she wrote "Justin Bieber has hot" a correct phrase, grammatically, but not correct for what she meant.  That sentence just says he is dying from the heat, not that he is HOT.  This generated lots of giggles.  From the boys, mostly.

Despite my trying to explain that you can't use the phrase that way, they still try to.  Year after year.  I've seen it all.

And I should know better than to make my own worksheets for practice.  A long time ago, I used to do a lot of stuff where they had to translate, but these days, this is frowned upon because it's not really a legitimate way to use the language.  And I completely agree.

But, since knocking a kid down the stairs to ask him how his leg feels is frowned upon, sometimes I dig up my old stand bys to make them practice a little.

And on that sheet, along with "we are hungry" and "the girls are tired"  there is a sentence that says "the cat is hot".  And for some reason , I always have to clarify that the poor feline doesn't like the heat, not that it's a HOT cat.  We aren't talking about Kitty Softporn Softpaws here.

And as I was explaining, I heard the biggest mouth in class say "that is one HOT -----" and I knew exactly what was going to come next.

Because I was thinking that if someone said that it would be really funny.

Because after 45 minutes with those nasty 14 year olds, I am a 14 year old.

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