Saturday 21 June 2008

Talking tish posh.


La Fille has been reading and watching too much Charlie and Lola. For those in a state of blissful ignorance of these storybook characters, Lola is a precocious little girl whose brother Charlie says is "very small and very funny". She is also fond of overusing words like 'absolutely', 'very', 'ever so', 'really' and 'actually', often together as in: "It was absolutely ever so really very funny". This sounds like posh nonsense and is amusing on first reading.

So there we were, La Fille and I, trotting along to the nursery. As she has spent most of the last three weeks with me I thought I would reassure her I wasn't abandoning her. I worry too much. She was skipping along happily and seemed pleased to be going.

Me: "I won't leave you there long today. I'll be back to get you before you know it."

Fille: "It's OK, Mama."

Me: "No, I promise it's just for a couple of hours."

Fille: "Really. It's OK, Mama. I absolutely will be very fine actually."

I hope this has come from Charlie and Lola otherwise La Fille has been actually mixing with absolutely the really very wrong type of English people.

9 comments:

Laura Jane Williams said...

I love that!

Waffle said...

You are so lucky. Mes fistons won't speak any kind of english any more and even their French is more Pokemon than Academie Francaise.
I quite like Charlie and Lola. But my absolute fave kids book at moment is called 'mon petit monstre cheri' my ramona badescu. it is gorgeous. there is a monster called papadamour who eats his yoghurt with an axe. Wonderful.

Nicol said...

How cute! I haven't heard of the books but will have to see about finding one. I like the idea of introducing larger words.

Anonymous said...

GWTM, thanks.
Jaywalker, if La Fille won't ask me for what she wants in English, she doesn't get it. Try it next time they want chips or ice-cream! Two of my favourite monster books are: Not Now Bernard and Monster Bed.

Anonymous said...

Nicol, try to find original books by Lauren Child in preference to the ones based on the TV series.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, lost the plot. Turning into clucking hens scenario. Shame. Excellent blog written by top notch Fleet Street scribe.
"love that", then "How cute" seem to be the order of the day.
So sad none of the the smarmy and very mumsy contributors don't have the balls to kick in to a very topical and whimsical forum.
Sorry if the Nilsen quips missed the mark. Mind you, most of your fellow bloggers would probably have found The Clangers pretty damned frightening.

Anonymous said...

Scotty, apologies if we've turned too mumsy for you. Sorry too for not replying to the wonderful Nilson comment. I couldn't think of anything witty, then it dropped off the screen and out of my life.
What do you mean? The Clangers were damn frightening.

Waffle said...

Hello! Avert your eyes Scotty, I've come back to be mumsy and smarmy and fearful of tv characters from the 1970s! Oooh, those pesky ovaries, messing with my brain again, tsk tsk.

ParisGirl I have tagged you for one of those meme thingies, si tu veux bien.

Parisgirl said...

Thanks Jaywalker, I'll do my best when I have a moment!