I say sin, you say sane.

We are studying European geography in Classical Conversations this cycle. We learned the major rivers a couple of weeks ago, and the river that runs through Paris was causing some pronunciation consternation. I said that I was fairly certain my four semesters of college French had assured me that Seine is pronounced 'Sin.' Another mother in the class said she was pretty sure it was "Sane," and the official cd agreed with her. My friend Janie told me it's probably one of those words we have our own American version of;  like, for example, how we say Rio Grand instead of Rrrrio Grahn-day. Though we do (well, most of us) say "tor-teeya" instead of "torTILLa," and "quesa-deeyah" instead of "quesa DILLa." So, we just get to DECIDE when we are going to change up the pronunciation of non-English words? I think I am going to keep calling it the River Sin, because Msr. Professor Whose Name I've Long Forgotten would want me to. On principle.

I've told you before, haven't I, that the country we call Hungary, is, in Hungarian, called Magyarorszag? Where in the HECK did we get Hungary out of Magyarorszag??

When I was thinking about this on the way home from our campus, I realized that Sin-Sane almost rhymes with Sinn-Fein (though I'm pretty sure that is pronounced SHin-Fain. I remember looking it up in college so I would sound smart if it came up in casual conversation. Which, to be honest, it didn't very often at Texas A&M)  and I realized I haven't heard much about Sinn-Fein in many, many years. Is there still a conflict in Ireland, or has everyone clinked their glasses of Guinness and decided to stop caring who is a Protestant and who is a Catholic? One time I was on the subway in London and this guy asked me where I was from, and I told him, and then he told me he was from Arlen. I asked where Arlen was, thinking maybe it was a suburb of London, or perhaps a small town in Belgium. "Yer dunno where ARLEN is???" he cried. And I am certain he told the story of The Very Stupid American Girl Who Never Studied European Geography to all of his friends later that night at his local.

Helena calls porcupines "pickle pines" and she says "puh-nano" for piano. She seems to enjoy mispronouncing words, then waiting for the other two to lose their MINDS trying to correct her. There's a Ninjago character named Lord Garmadon, and Helena, anytime she sees Hudson looking at his Ninjago book will say, " Is that Lord Garnagon?" and he and Harper both get extremely agitated.

I am generally annoyed with Ninjago and very much wish Lego had never succumbed to the siren song of merchandising of any sort. Though I am sure the billions of dollars they make from Star Wars/Chima/Hobbit/Ninjagoetc.. are very persuasive in the other direction.

A few weeks back, Helena "was just brushing" the yarn hair of her beloved Raggedy Ann, and this was the result:

 Now Harper and Hudson have taken to calling poor Raggedy Ann "Benjamin Franklin" presumably because of her vast expanse of forehead. Perhaps Helena was just helping Raggedy Ann to see that bangs (or, as my friends in Arlen would say, "a fringe") are almost always regrettable.

I will leave you with Ballerina Bat Girl who came to visit me one morning with her sidekick Simon the Bear.