My daughter came home from her 2nd grade upset because some kids weren't nice to her again. She finished her homework (or didn't have any) so my wife allowed her to have a friend come over. While she was out getting her friend one of the girls in her class (Israeli with no English speaking blood) called and told my wife that she was very upset because my daughter called her a F****** B****. Now this was very upsetting for my wife to hear, because we don't approve of that kind of language. This is the same girl who stole my daughter's belt one day and then blamed someone else for giving it to her. (her belt was off for a good reason, having to do with gym day, but I didn't fully get that part)
My wife asked my daghter about it later and apparantly she had never heard those words before the girl said them to her and she didn't remember the words. This is very believable because we never use those kind of words in our house, the children don't watch television and they only speak and Hebrew except in the house.
My daughters story was the girl was being very mean to her and yelling at her in Hebrew and then she said F******* B**** to my daughter who said there were no such words in English.
So my wife went to the girls house with our daughter this evening to discuss the animosity between these girls with her mom and the girls together. The girl changed her story and said actually another girl said that to her and said my daughter told her to say it. My wife has the feeling that she still wasn't being completely honest, and since she is from a non-religious family with older siblings and a television that is never shut off, she has probably heard that kind of language before.
In any case, after discussing the problem, the girls decided that they can try to be friends in school from now on.
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4 comments:
The weird thing here is that those kind of words aren't considered swear words because they're English. So, they're said on even non-cable TV. They're like novelty words for the Israelis to use. This wk, a teacher in one of my seminar classes used the F word in class, and I was really surprised. I've never heard a teacher swear in class before, and he just did it so casually. Maybe, they dont really understand what they're saying, or aren't "prudish" about those kinds of things.
-OC
What's really disturbing is when Israelis who don't know any better use English's unforgivable curse words, like N-gg--.
Steg,
You're absolutely correct. someone told me the other day that he was a Nugget fan and I almost wopped him one.
The problem is that in Israel the words have no meaning or cultural significance. Whatever they hear in a rap song is considered ok to say.
One of the reasons I knew that this girl wasn't telling the whole truth, is that if it was the first time she had heard those words she wouldn't have been able to say it that clearly to my wife and she wouldn't have known that it was a bad thing.
Steg and Rock:
We had a similar discussion on Treppenwitz's blog last month:
Jarring Buzzwords in Israel
Hearing native Israeli Bnei Akiva nice frum girls use some of this language always flips me.
OC: I thought you were barred from keyboarding for a week?
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