Don't Knock It
English might be my native language but living in another English-speaking country is still a vocabulary-enhancing experience. Today was a bank holiday so the kids were home from school. Some of them decided to entertain themselves at my expensive with something known as "Knock Down Ginger".
UKians will realise that no violence was perpetrated on my person, these kids were merely playing the game of knock-on-someone's-door-then-run-away-and-laugh-before-they-open-it. Sadly, the real story behind the name is lost, though theories are rife.
Fortunately, I never mistook the term to mean redhead abuse, it was clear that it meant something else, whatever that something else might be. Unlike when English friends referred to themselves as having been "tired and emotional." I swear, for the longest time I thought this was a matter for sympathy. It turned out their pain was self-inflicted, they'd been drunk.
I decided to leave the kids to their game and went to the park with a book. Not Jasper Fforde this time, but a book on second language acquisition...
UKians will realise that no violence was perpetrated on my person, these kids were merely playing the game of knock-on-someone's-door-then-run-away-and-laugh-before-they-open-it. Sadly, the real story behind the name is lost, though theories are rife.
Fortunately, I never mistook the term to mean redhead abuse, it was clear that it meant something else, whatever that something else might be. Unlike when English friends referred to themselves as having been "tired and emotional." I swear, for the longest time I thought this was a matter for sympathy. It turned out their pain was self-inflicted, they'd been drunk.
I decided to leave the kids to their game and went to the park with a book. Not Jasper Fforde this time, but a book on second language acquisition...