I was thinking how I learnt stuff at school back in the Sixties and early Seventies that had no bearing on my life whatsoever. Even more, I had no idea what they meant.
Alouette is a good example. We must have sung this French song every week. I could the words with my eyes shut. I just didn't know what any of it meant. I could probably say that about any of the language lessons I had and most of the maths lessons too. It all left me a bit cold and in he end school wad a chore. Like Allouette the song, it had no meaning for me. If I was told, I don't recall!
In later life I became a keen birdwatcher and found out that Alouette meant skylark in French!
Are there any words you knew as a kid and only found out what they meant later on?
Alouette is also a series of French helicopter designs. What do you expect from an aviation enthusiast ?
ReplyDeleteHa ha. Interesting. And then of course we had the British wine make, Hirondelle. Further birds in French!
DeleteApparently, its about plucking the feathers from a skylark, body part by body part (head, beak, wings etc)
ReplyDeleteRather macabre, I'd say.
That's awful Mish. Really? So Eh la Tete probably means off the head! Leave those Larks alone I say!
DeleteThat's funny! We used to sing that Alouette song too and to this day don't even know why. My grade school only had Spanish lessons (made possible by a television rolled into the classroom and the public broadcasting station). So where the heck did a French song come into play? In our family we always said "Gesundheit' when someone sneezed, as well as a smattering of German and Croatian words. I figured that German stuff out much later LOL
ReplyDeleteHa ha, I remember the roll-in TV set at Primary School too Ed. It was on tall wheeled legs and had doors like a cupboard. We watched a presenter called Geoffrey Wheeler but I've no idea what he presented!
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