Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Having a lie-in today...or is it lay-in or maybe lye-in

Besides learning Hebrew here in the Holy Land, I am also learning English. You heard read me right. Over the past ten months, I have had the pleasure of meeting and making friends with Brits, Australians and South Africans. I've learned (the hard way) that not all English speakers are Americans and should be referred to as Anglos. I have learned that the B's, A's, and S.A.'s have a New York/New Jersey (or America/Canada) type of rivalry with each of the others. While each one has made fun of the way the other one speaks when talking to me privately, but they all agree that Americans have completely butchered their beloved language.

They're just jealous.

(At first I thought they all sounded alike. They were pretty insulted at that. Now I pretty much can identify the different accents.)

And by the way, the Brits still are carrying a grudge that we have our independence. I believe they still refer to the American Revolution as the Great Catastrophe over there across the pond.

Anyhoo, the point of this post is my lay-in (if you are British, please tell me how you spell that). In America we call that "sleeping in" or "sleeping late". Today is the first day of the "Chofesh HaGadol" [big vacation], and the summer stretches out before us. I am very afraid. In America, the kids have a few days between camp and school and then are off, either to sleep away camp or day camp, which means they are occupied from 8 AM to 4:30 PM. I went to work, ran errands, and when they came home we went to the pool until it was time for dinner and bed. Over here, they are to old for the day camps. Orli will be going away for two weeks, but Tali opted not to go. For the first few weeks we will keep busy with Mazi (more on that another time), but still, I am very afraid of the hours that are unplanned.

In any case, everyone (except Isaac) is having a lay-in today. I am always an early riser so I slept 'til 7, which for me is late.

I'm going to make my list of things to accomplish today, and go do them...

Hoping we all have a wonderful summer!

8 comments:

Fern Chasida said...

just tell the brits that they may have invented the language, but we improved it!
when we were on kibbutz they once did a game night and we played pictionary. arthur was paired with a british guy who was doing the drawing and arthur was guessing - face elevator. face elevator. he kept saying. when time ran out, the british guy slammed his hands down and shouted "you bloody american. what the hell is a face elevator? it's facelift!" we still crack up about it. yechi hahevdal hakatan!

SuperRaizy said...

I've always suspected that the British accent is just an affectation, and that in private they talk the same way that we do.

JJ said...

Heh heh, I just posted about today being the first day of summer vacation! My kids are starting kaitana tomorrow, though, so (thank goodness) they won't be home too much :-)

It IS funny to hear all the different accents/words used by English speakers from different countries. I don't think I'd ever spoken to a South African til I moved to Ra'anana. You can't swing a dead cat in this town without hitting one!

Anonymous said...

Hope you guys enjoy. The girls and I say Hi! (Pick any accent). We miss her.

E

Leora said...

I'm a big fan of all the British Jews I've met. I've liked some South African Jews, too. The world doesn't begin and end in Brooklyn.

I enjoyed telling my Israeli cousins that we were on a "holiday". Pronounced holeedayyyy.

Sarah Likes Green said...

lol... when i was in israel for a year, my roommate was american and we kept having misunderstandings (i am australian) so we started a dictionary of translations of aussie english to american english to avoid confusion! while there were british, canadians & south africans (to name a few) there as well, we all got quite an education on other nationalities english vernacular.

enjoy your summer.

Anonymous said...

it's a lie in, love
x

pharmacy said...

New Jersey is my favorite cit in the world, I have many friends there