Tuesday 3 April 2007

Language Confusion

I keep forgetting to tell y'all this story.

When we go down to the Isle of Wight we have to take a ferry from the mainland over to the island. This is Sebastian's favourite part of the trip. Abigail has only been a couple of times before and this was all of a bit of a mystery to her. She was very confused about the trip when we went over and the source of the confusion was not clear until we embarked on our return journey.

On the way back Abigail kept asking me "Where is the ferry?" I kept telling her "We are on the ferry." She kept replying "No, we are on a boat." This exchange went back and forth several times before she explained to me "This can't be the ferry. It doesn't have wings." At which point I realised Abigail thought we were taking a fairy to the Isle of Wight and was extraordinarily disappointed by the fact that there were no fairies only a boat. Poor girl. I would be disappointed too.

This reminds of the time that Marc and I were discussing at the dinner table the fact that we needed to put a curtain across our front door to block out the huge draught that was getting in during the cold winter months. Sebastian asked us what difference a curtain would make. We replied that it would block out the draught. Sebastian informed is that if we didn't opened the door then the giraffes couldn't get in. We nearly died laughing. When said out loud draughts and giraffes do sound remarkably similar. Poor child. He was haunted by the idea that giraffes were coming in the front door and the only solution his parents could come up with was a stupid curtain!

3 comments:

stephanie said...

Darn English language...its tricky, very tricky. I still lol when I hear the draught/giraffe story.

Auntie

Brooke said...

I would be disappointed also if I was Abigal.

Anonymous said...

This made me laugh! :)