Wash my mouth out with soap
None of my students want to speak English. It really isn’t the most popular subject it seems. You’d think they’d want to learn it so they could understand the lyrics to all the songs on the radio…but no, I had boys next to me in class whispering “Je m’en fouts, je m’en fouts (I think that’s how it’s spelled.) C’mon guys, I know that much French (for those of you who don’t, it translates roughly to “I don’t give a d**n.” ). So when one of the terminale students asks me the correct pronunciation of “hoe,” I’m so excited he’s actually asking me in English and interested in something that I go ahead and tell him, no questions asked, though I try to advise him never to use the word in polite company. I should have asked him if he was interested in farming or gardening…
But the students aren’t the only ones interested in American profanity. Ringo picked a particularly colorful scene for theater today. It’s from the movie Jungle Fever. The black main character’s racially mixed wife has just discovered that he has been cheating on her with a white woman. She isn’t happy. And she’s not bothering to be polite about it, with regards to her husband or the entire neighborhood (though she is encouraging her neighbors to avail themselves of her husband’s belongings, as she is throwing them out the window.) Guess who gets to model her speech. I’ve never used the f-word so many times in my life as I had to Friday! I don’t think I’ve ever used it half as many, a third as many times in my entire life combined as I did Friday. And I think Ringo was getting a real kick out of me saying it, particularly as I was trying to say it with some feeling, as our students tend to be a little reserved and it wasn’t going to help much if I’m modeling a dead-pan “the white b**** you f***ed, you motherf"@§!%.” And what’s more, everyone gets to memorize it and have it ready for next week. I mean, is this really helping anyone’s English? All the French people know that word already. Might it not be useful to act out a scene with a little bit broader vocabulary?
I need a bath.
But the students aren’t the only ones interested in American profanity. Ringo picked a particularly colorful scene for theater today. It’s from the movie Jungle Fever. The black main character’s racially mixed wife has just discovered that he has been cheating on her with a white woman. She isn’t happy. And she’s not bothering to be polite about it, with regards to her husband or the entire neighborhood (though she is encouraging her neighbors to avail themselves of her husband’s belongings, as she is throwing them out the window.) Guess who gets to model her speech. I’ve never used the f-word so many times in my life as I had to Friday! I don’t think I’ve ever used it half as many, a third as many times in my entire life combined as I did Friday. And I think Ringo was getting a real kick out of me saying it, particularly as I was trying to say it with some feeling, as our students tend to be a little reserved and it wasn’t going to help much if I’m modeling a dead-pan “the white b**** you f***ed, you motherf"@§!%.” And what’s more, everyone gets to memorize it and have it ready for next week. I mean, is this really helping anyone’s English? All the French people know that word already. Might it not be useful to act out a scene with a little bit broader vocabulary?
I need a bath.
posted by Etrangère | 8:53 AM
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