{"id":304,"date":"2010-05-09T20:52:57","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T02:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/?p=304"},"modified":"2010-05-09T20:52:57","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T02:52:57","slug":"yelling-singing-and-making-statements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/2010\/05\/09\/yelling-singing-and-making-statements\/","title":{"rendered":"Yelling, Singing and Making Statements"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the day of the fourth grade Culture Fair<\/em>. \u00c2\u00a0Mexico and Japan were in one room. \u00c2\u00a0India was across the hall with Britain. There were tamales and wasabe and soy beans in a pod. \u00c2\u00a0And hot chai.<\/p>\n

The kids were organized into small groups of 6-10 boys and girls, and every 18 minutes they’d rotate from one country to another.<\/p>\n

My country wasn’t a country at all. \u00c2\u00a0I had some pads and rugs set out in front of a table where the kids could sit, and I recited a poem in three languages. \u00c2\u00a0On the map on the wall that showed what countries were in what rooms, my country was Jabberwocky<\/em>.<\/p>\n

‘Twas brillig… <\/em><\/p>\n

Il briligue… <\/em><\/p>\n

Es brillig war…<\/em><\/p>\n

The first group of kids were rolling in laughter during the French. \u00c2\u00a0And they all were wide-eyed at the German.\u00c2\u00a0We talked about words in different languages and where they go in our brains and how the same words can sound so different. \u00c2\u00a0We talked about translating from one language to another and how it seems like it should be so straightforward until you try to do it …say… with poetry. And we talked about the sound of The Jabberwocky<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The kids agreed that the sound of the German fit the story better. \u00c2\u00a0“It kind of sounds more like yelling,” I suggested, “where the French sounds more like singing.” \u00c2\u00a0A short-haired boy raised his hand. \u00c2\u00a0 “And I think the English sounds more like … like making a statement.”<\/p>\n

Not yelling. \u00c2\u00a0Not singing. \u00c2\u00a0Making a statement. \u00c2\u00a0Perhaps that’s just about as accurate a description of English as anyone might have come up with. \u00c2\u00a0… \u00c2\u00a0Or on second thought, maybe my English rendition of the poem needs some work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was the day of the fourth grade Culture Fair. \u00c2\u00a0Mexico and Japan were in one room. \u00c2\u00a0India was across the hall with Britain. There were tamales and wasabe and soy beans in a pod. \u00c2\u00a0And hot chai. The kids were organized into small groups of 6-10 boys and girls, and every 18 minutes they’d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}