Phoque

My nearly-6-year-old son loves the A-word. My fault, really, for teaching him and his sister Miss Susie Had a Steamboat:

Miss Susie had a steamboat
The steamboat had a bell
The steamboat went to Heaven
Miss Susie went to...

Hello operator
Give me number 9
And if you disconnect me
I'll kick you from...

Behind the 'frigerator
There was a piece of glass
Miss Susie fell upon it
And broke her little...

Ask me no more questions
Tell me no more lies
Miss Susie's in the kitchen
Making her mud pies

I love that song, and was relieved recently to see it reproduced in The Daring Book for Girls. Now no one will know it came from me.

Other than that, so far the only curse in my children's lexicon has been the I-word: I'm telling.

My daughter told me today, however, that the French word for seal is rather bad in English. This was the rumour on the playground, at least. My French is ghastly, so I just looked it up myself on Bablefish. A little trial and error was required to communicate the correct definition of the word. (I really need my old-fashioned paper-bound French-English dictionary.) I finally tried:

seal (animal)

.... and I see what she's getting at. But I can hardly forbid them to say the French word for seal, can I? I can already see them trying to work it into conversations. Soon they'll want to head to the harbour for "no reason" or make lists of the "cutest animals that swim."