A Shrewdness of Apes

An Okie teacher banished to the Midwest. "Education is not the filling a bucket but the lighting of a fire."-- William Butler Yeats

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Give me an H! No, a W!

These two girls began a shouting match at each other, and a crowd began to gather. Your intrepid heroine happened by and waded in, as she is wont to do, before the F-bombs created an irresistable barrage toward real trouble.

I decided to break it down into parts:
First, in my command voice: "Okay girls, stop yelling."
And, they did! Now the one on the left didn't stop cursing, but that's fine...

Step two: "That's enough with the language. Knock it off."
And she did! Wow, I was on a roll!

They were still jawing at each other, though-- something about "Someone's cousin said that someone said that you said that I said...." Gad. The one on the right was going on an and on about "You think you can talk to me that way 'cause I'm a freshman..." and "It ain't your business!"

I gave the people standing around "the eye" and told them to go on about THEIR business, and they did, (score!) moving back to their mystery meat nachos covered in the processed orange goo which is basically melted fat that some people mistakenly call cheese, and whatever else was definitely not as diverting as this little show.

So this wasn't going to stop, although they weren't going to smack each other while I was standing there either. So I looked around-- no administrators, of course-- and decided to send them to the counselors, since I was sure the secretaries didn't need two loud girls arguing while I tried to find someone with a shred of authority.

I told the one girl who hadn't been cursing to walk to the counselors' office and she set off. I threaded my arm through the Cursing Girl's and told her to start telling me about it. She did-- and it was just as trivial as I thought, but that's teenagers for ya. I leaned away from her when I finally passed an AP who had mysteriously appeared like someone who had beamed down from the Starship Enterprise and suggested that someone watch the cafeteria, since there was now no adult there whatsoever and the natives were restless. I said we were going to the counselors'.

"What? Why aren't you taking them to a principal's office?" the AP grumbled.
"Ummm, since there are none of them around, I am not sending angry girls all over the school only to encounter a locked door and then give them the chance to fight for real in privacy in an abandoned hallway."

So off we went. Cursing Girl finished her story. We got a counselor to take her into an office, and then I had Freshman Girl start telling me her story. Same thing-- a chain of people said that she had said something about Cursing Girl's cousin and she had tried to tell Cursing Girl's cousin that she hadn't said anything but Cursing Girl intervened and starting cursing at her and calling her names.

"What names?" I asked as I was taking notes.
At first Freshman Girl didn't want to say, but I told her to go on so she said, "The B word and the S word and the H word."

Okay, now I know the B word and the S word, but the H word? I start mentally scrolling through my lexicon of obscenities, but no H word. Lots of other words I was glad Cursing Girl didn't use, but still...

"Um, what do you mean, H word? Is there an H word?"

She nodded, and again didn't want to say it, but finally, it came out: "'Ho."

OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

That's what I get for being a good speller. I thought they'd invented a new slam.

13 Comments:

At 11/28/06, 7:12 AM, Blogger CaliforniaTeacherGuy said...

Santa Claus is definitely going to have to quit chortling and saying, "Ho, ho, ho!"

 
At 11/28/06, 2:18 PM, Blogger Mrs. Chili said...

Oh, this one made me LAUGH. OUT. LOUD! A GORGEOUS entry! Teenagers are just the bomb, aren't they?! There is seemingly no limit to the good material they give us....

 
At 11/29/06, 12:31 AM, Blogger eddyquette said...

And I always thought one spelt it "hoe" and used it to dig up gardens... Wicked language! What next? "You stupid piece of bailer twine!" "You worthless pitchfork!" Kids these days, tsk, tsk. ;-)

 
At 11/29/06, 7:24 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Forgive my ignorance, but I don't get it. Maybe it is because I am not American. What does "ho" mean? (I tried google, and it did not work).

 
At 11/29/06, 1:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Ho" is another term for prostitute, but it's more commonly used instead of "slut" to describe a (usually) girl who's made you mad. I can honestly say that I started hearing this in junior high (fifteen years ago! ack!), and even then it annoyed me that they kept spelling it without the e. I was called a "ho" once, but I'm sorry to say that my best retort was to tell the other girl that I was not a garden tool. *sigh*

 
At 11/29/06, 4:12 PM, Blogger "Ms. Cornelius" said...

Oxeador--
It is slang for "whore." It's a very popular word in rap music. Which is why I don't like much rap.

 
At 11/29/06, 9:57 PM, Blogger Mister Teacher said...

I thought maybe the H-word was actually, "harpsichord." I think that might be the new trend -- calling each other vile musical instruments that the

 
At 11/29/06, 11:06 PM, Blogger "Ms. Cornelius" said...

As in, "Listen, harpsichord, you better stop PLAYIN' with my man?" Hmm-- It has a certain "ring" to it....

Ho, ho, ho.
Oh, oh, oh.

I was almost tempted to tell her how to spell it correctly. Damn my English teacher instincts!

 
At 11/30/06, 9:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was reading something with my seventh graders last week where it talked about people "hoeing." Lots of snickering from the peanut gallery. I stopped and wrote the other word on the board and explained what it meant...the kids were really funny about it.

This was a hilarious post.

 
At 11/30/06, 4:55 PM, Blogger Mister Teacher said...

Ruth, that sounds like what I went through today explaining to my kids how beavers made a dam...

 
At 11/30/06, 6:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is Ruth's aunt jumping in....a number of years ago, I taught Bible in the public (Yes!!) schools in a southern city. I learned what words not to use when I got reactions from the children--words perfectly innocent and good so far as I knew, but the children made it quite plain that some words were definitely OUT. These inner city kids knew things I'd never heard of--and some I still haven't!

 
At 12/1/06, 12:00 PM, Blogger "Ms. Cornelius" said...

Oh yes. Try talking about "Spanish booty." They think I'm talking about J Lo.

 
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