It Means Odd

It is hard to describe to your kids why certain words that are in their grandpa's readers from when he was in grade school are no longer appropriate to say. It is actually very sad.

Coral and I were discussing, NOT GOSSIPING, hopefully at least, about a lady at her job that loves to tell everyone exactly what is on her mind. Some of the things she has said to Coral about her changing pregnant body have been down right off. Coral said, "She is just a little weird."

Ian of course is sitting there absorbing everything we are saying and he says, "Queer. She is a little queer. It means odd."

Sadly, I had to describe that if he says that word now, people might not understand how he is saying it and might think he is using it as a bad word, not just describing a scene in a book written somewhere around 1929.

"You know my sweet little seven year old. You need to be politically correct or someone might be offended even though it says it in the book you are reading with your daddy called Buddy on the Floating Island. You know, the book your grandpa gave you."

It is more innocent than any book series we have ever read to them, and I still have to explain something ridiculous to him. RRRRRRRR!

Fun books though if you can find them. The BUDDY series, written by Howard R. Garis, consisted of 21 volumes published by Cupples & Leon between 1929 and 1947. We have most of them I think. Thank you, once again, Grandpa George. You have given us plenty of summer reading, and the boys LOVE their Buddy books.