A new Aussieism today. I picked up the girls at school today and Connor's class was in the middle of a very cool game involving laying on the floor, being very still and silent. I stood in awe of her teachers getting 12 kids ages 3-5 to do this. Made a mental note to hire both of them to come do this at my house. As Anna, Connor's teacher, saw me she turned to Connor and said, "Connor, Mum's here, up you get!" Too tired to be clever, I responded with a witty, "What in God's name is that supposed to mean?" But Connor jumped up and ran to me so I was able to translate that to "Up you go" When I explained the phrase I knew to the teachers they gave me the usual "Crazy Yank" look. I'm getting used to that look - I see it a lot. This one is funny though because 1. I'm a parent so they don't want to be openly rude and make me angry and 2. One of them is MAYBE 24 and the other one is 18 only in her dreams, so to them I am older than dirt and they want to be respectful of their elders.
That last sentence was the most painful and depressing thing I've ever written. I'm going to do the geriatric crawl out of here now and regain my youth by helping Teddy play the new LEGO Indiana Jones PS2 game. Up I get!
An American family living in Australia. While we all speak English here, I wouldn't say we all speak the same language.
4 comments:
I can see I need to give you some more Aussie-speak tutorials. And I get you on the age thing.
Judie
Aww come on, you're not old! In my mind I am still in highschool. Then I realize that the folks who just graduated were born in the 89/90. Hello......also to note, Noah (with his brilliant math skills) calculated that when this baby graduates highschool I'll be 52. What have I gotten myself into?! ~Tara
At least she didn't say "Up, you git"
I am cracking up at Ted's comment!!!!
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