Okay, we were shopping at the Book Connection (used bookstore purveyor of lots of educational wooden toys, esp. Melissa and Doug stuff), and I found this neat maze-puzzle alphabet thing. It had little wooden pictures in grooves, and you had to move them along the maze of grooves to match up with the letter of the alphabet. It looked really neat and I almost bought it.

I decided not to because to accompany the letter M there was a picture of a chimpanzee. (C for Chimpanzee would have made sense; I think there was C for cat; and A for Ape would have worked; there was an apple for A. Heck, even P for primate would have worked for me).

Chimpanzees are not monkeys and I detest children's resources that incorrectly categorize animals. This seems to be the most glaringly common case. They usually manage, for example, to refrain from calling dolphins "fish" or spiders "insects" (though that one does happen too).

Am I too anal? Or do things like this bug anyone else? It's one of the reasons I want to homeschool, so my daughter doesn't come home from first grade with a teacher whose exposure to science in college was likely a course that a chimpanzee could probably pass, with her head full of completely inaccurate science (and history) "facts".

Well, if you really like a resource other than something like that, you could simply point out that "Whoops! They think that chimpanzee is a monkey - lots of people don't realize there's a big difference," or whatever. And that just makes for a conversation about those things - an unschooling moment :D...

No, I'm not one who's fussy about those kinds of things. ;) Lillian

Ha. I don't know if you're too anal, but ya sure are funny!

I have educational "issues" as well regarding the alphabet. Like when say a chimpanzee is shown for the letter "c" when in fact the phoneme that is featured in this instance is a /ch/ sound and not a /c/ sound, which makes teaching children phonemes more challenging. A "cat" or a "catapult" or a "cadaver" might be a better example of the /c/ sound. Oh wait, ignore that last one. Not appropriate for a children's book.

Hmmm, but then again when I tell people we're probably homeschooling next year, they get a knowing look on their face and say, "yeah...I could see you homeschooling. You'd do great at it." As in, they are saying, "yeah, an overanalytical person about education like you, I can see homeschooling. "

However, I do think it's important to not get too full of myself - there are some things I wouldn't be so good at teaching her that she would want to learn (violin, or catapult design, or binomial anything), and she we can call in the experts on those subjects. But alphabet books...oh man, I can pick those out myself.

No, I'm not one who's fussy about those kinds of things. ;) Lillian

But Lillian, that is why you are so cool! You are an inspiration to us analytical types...perhaps there is mellow chillness to be found in homeschooling after all...

But Lillian, that is why you are so cool! You are an inspiration to us analytical types...perhaps there is mellow chillness to be found in homeschooling after all...

Oh, but don't get me started on the use of the word "nother." Nother. As in a whole nother subject... :flipped It feels like chalk screeching on a blackboard...
:D Lillian

And as long as nobody ever, ever, ever teaches my daughter that "ECT" is a word. I swear. It's etc., as in short for et cetera. What is WRONG with you people?!

OK, my thread jumping is done here. Sorry. But I feel sooo much better now...

This afternoon, my four year old daughter was looking at a "learn the alphabet" rack I picked up at the thrift store- same old thing square wooden beads, letters (capitals and smalls) on one side, and a picture of a thing on the other with its word written out(M has a mouse, by the way), on a wire six across, five rows of them. Anyway, she's looking at them, saying them, like "A is for apple! [...] G is for grapes! MMM! I love grapes, nyumnyumnyum", and I hear "N is for basketball... O is for tomato! mmm! I love tomatoes!"... what?! So, I have to haul myself up from my computer again :-D, and go look. Why can't the pictures be (a lot) more obvious? O is for "orange"... and that's one very tomatoey looking orange (and T? Traffic lights), and the N is showing a basketball backboard, hoop, and NET. And I tell her, "basketball starts with B," and she counters, flipping the B tile over, "No! B is for Butterfly."

I had sort of thought the baby would just enjoy spinning the tile beads, when I got it.

My college linguistics class made me a lot more relaxed about English grammar than I used to be. I still appreciated that I'd had to diagram sentences in middle school, though. Most of my classmates just didn't get it! Some of them didn't even know what parts of speech were (let alone what the parts of speech were).

I do see what you mean about the phoneme thing, but since the english alphabet isn't phonemic (doesn't recognize ch as a separate letter, for example), it didn't really occur to me.

Anyway, I guess my anthropology background just plays a bigger part in what bugs me. If I was a botanist I might take issue with whether they call palms trees or something like that.

And I get enough of those "unschooling" moments of distinguishing a chimpanzee from a monkey when reading to DD. Most notably, Curious George and Hand Hand, Fingers Thumb. In both, the pictures are quite obviously of chimpanzees (actually, in HHFT some of them look like they might be bonobos), but they are called monkeys. For now, I just change the words when I read. Once DD starts reading, I'll have to explain myself. (Well, sweetie, back in the 1930's when this was written, people often didn't know a chimpanzee from a monkey, and didn't think like we do that it isn't right to kidnap baby chimpanzees to put them in zoos...)

Anyway, I guess my anthropology background just plays a bigger part in what bugs me.

My degree is in anthropology :D - and I don't give a rat's patootie about the way people mix up that sort of thing. As long, of course, as they don't refer to it as a whole nother thing... - Lillian

And as long as nobody ever, ever, ever teaches my daughter that "ECT" is a word. I swear. It's etc., as in short for et cetera. What is WRONG with you people?!

Funny - I've never seen it spelled that way. Although I've certainly heard it pronounced ec setra - so I guess that's where they come up with the ECT... I've never understood why that doesn't get cleared up early in life. What do they do in those classrooms all those years? :lol - Lillian

chimps aren't monkeys? Well, had I known that, I would have been anal about it as well!! :lol

I guess it wouldn't bother me much if I really liked the rest of the toy. If I didn't like one letter I would probably glue or paint a picture of a proper M creature on that piece... but then I have a background in art, not science. :wink
Maybe you and your child could write a letter to the company about your issue with the toy. Get the word out that a chimp isn't a monkey.

Well, if you really like a resource other than something like that, you could simply point out that "Whoops! They think that chimpanzee is a monkey - lots of people don't realize there's a big difference," or whatever. And that just makes for a conversation about those things - an unschooling moment :D...

No, I'm not one who's fussy about those kinds of things. ;) Lillian
That's pretty much what we do when we see any kind of ape depicted as a monkey. This always leads to another lesson on the differences and how not everything you read is fact and that one must educate themselves so they know the differences in fact and, well, ignorance. :lol Our friends think we're anal.

My word peeve, ok WORDS, are: ain't and brat. The former makes me wince, the latter makes me cringe.

Simple mistakes to me are okay, that is part of life, but one of the biggest things that made me mad is when I found out that most everything I learned in school was wrong. Everything was so generalized and passed off as truth...Christopher Columbus was not some perfect hero guy who discovered America. Reptiles don’t necessarily lay eggs. All those little lies that added up. It’s all about trying to pour as much info in those little heads as possible whether it’s accurate or not, that’s what ticks me off...

Funny - I've never seen it spelled that way. Although I've certainly heard it pronounced ec setra - so I guess that's where they come up with the ECT... I've never understood why that doesn't get cleared up early in life. What do they do in those classrooms all those years? :lol - Lillian
They practice ignorant pronunciation -- the hidden cause of many a misspelled word.

Simple mistakes to me are okay, that is part of life, but one of the biggest things that made me mad is when I found out that most everything I learned in school was wrong. Everything was so generalized and passed off as truth...Christopher Columbus was not some perfect hero guy who discovered America. Reptiles don’t necessarily lay eggs. All those little lies that added up. It’s all about trying to pour as much info in those little heads as possible whether it’s accurate or not, that’s what ticks me off...

As much as I delight in conspiracy theories, this isn't one. You know why these myths are perpetuated? Simple ignorance on the part of the generally-lower-scoring-than-the-norm elementary school teachers. Hey, one mom recently told me about her discussion with a school teacher when the mom wanted to bring in macaroons for a snack day. The teacher said, "Oh, we can't do that, because one of our kids has an allergy to nuts." Perplexed, the mom explained that the macaroons were plain -- no nuts added. "But what about the coconut. You know...coconut!" the teacher replied.

Yeah. Right. Got it.

Yes, things like this bug me. Sure, we can point out the incorrect information if we know it's incorrect. What if we don't though? What if we know so little about a subject that we don't even realise the information is wrong? It would be a full time job (and then some) to research every little fact in every book we read. That's why it bugs me. Yes, we should realize that not everything we read is true, yes, we should point these things out to our kids, but it still bugs me when "educational" materials don't get it right.

If I was a botanist I might take issue with whether they call palms trees or something like that

Here's a good example. I had no clue that a palm tree wasn't a tree. I live in NJ, the subject of palm "trees" doesn't come up often :lol

My biggest (current :lol) pet peeve is books that state that animals like Dimetredon, Mosasaurus and Pteradactyls (spelling???) were dinosaurs. I'm not overly interested in dinosaurs and I can't keep all those names straight as it is, so it would be nice if I could count on the books to tell it right so I don't have to remember but nooooooooo.

As a former anthropologist and a person who really digs human evolutionary history, it would royally piss me off to see a children's book that categorized chimps as monkeys. :irked:

A palm tree can be called a "tree" or not depending on which botanist you ask. I've got several of the darn things in my yard. All I know is that they're expensive to trim and shed annoying junk all over the yard. They also don't belong in the desert and I wish they would die but my stupid neighbor waters his lawn like it's...well, not the desert. Oh, and palm branches burn really hot and fast (I know that from camping out in Florida with guys who probably consumed too much alcohol to be around an open fire).

I always thought Christopher Columbus was a con artist who crunched numbers to suit his own convenience, got a lot of people from both sides of the ocean killed in the process of achieving his goals, didn't know where he was when he got there, and died poor, of syphilis, possibly still in denial that he hadn't gotten to the Far East. This is the version I got before graduating high school.

Sam Houston, on the other hand...

Well now I'm completely confused, :lol So this is inbetween editing a friend's story and reading Berenstain Bears books (ie: not exactly focused :lol) but I can't find anything online about palms not being trees. Maybe it's something else you're thinking of?

Oooh, the "monkey" would get me, too. A friend of mine is getting her PhD in anthropology and has been doing research with chimpanzees for the past 10 years. I made the mistake of calling chimps "monkeys" ONCE with her. Never again. That was one big fat teachable moment for me. :lol

Anal? Sure. But I think being anal is GOOD. Somebody needs to be out there making sure misinformation isn't getting spewed left and right!

I have educational "issues" as well regarding the alphabet. Like when say a chimpanzee is shown for the letter "c" when in fact the phoneme that is featured in this instance is a /ch/ sound and not a /c/ sound, which makes teaching children phonemes more challenging. A "cat" or a "catapult" or a "cadaver" might be a better example of the /c/ sound. Oh wait, ignore that last one. Not appropriate for a children's book.

Hmmmm...well, my own little anal issues:

Stricly speaking, C for Chimpanzee is addressing the grapheme C. Chimpanzee does begin with the grapheme C. English uses a non-phonemic system, so our graphemes do not have a 1:1 sound:symbol correlation. For example, the grapheme C can represent the phonemes /k/ and /s/, and the digraph CH can represent the phoneme /k/ as well as the phonemes I can't type here...the SH in ship and the CH in chimpanzee.

...so anyway...saying C is for chimpanzee is graphemically correct (and if graphemically isn't a word, it is now ;)). But I think it seems easier to teach the hard /k/ sound for the grapheme C, and maybe that's why you usually would see pictures of a card or candle or candy or cake?

Hmmm, but then again when I tell people we're probably homeschooling next year, they get a knowing look on their face and say, "yeah...I could see you homeschooling. You'd do great at it." As in, they are saying, "yeah, an overanalytical person about education like you, I can see homeschooling. "
I'm still deciding whether or not to homeschool and started a discussion among a group of friends about it and THAT is exactly what many of them said to me! It didn't feel like a compliment. :irked:

Hmmmm...well, my own little anal issues:

Stricly speaking, C for Chimpanzee is addressing the grapheme C. Chimpanzee does begin with the grapheme C. English uses a non-phonemic system, so our graphemes do not have a 1:1 sound:symbol correlation. For example, the grapheme C can represent the phonemes /k/ and /s/, and the digraph CH can represent the phoneme /k/ as well as the phonemes I can't type here...the SH in ship and the CH in chimpanzee.

...so anyway...saying C is for chimpanzee is graphemically correct (and if graphemically isn't a word, it is now ;)). But I think it seems easier to teach the hard /k/ sound for the grapheme C, and maybe that's why you usually would see pictures of a card or candle or candy or cake?


Yes, yes, I know - I just mean for teaching simple, beginning symbol-sound correlation, it makes much more sense to have the letter "c" in an alphabet book correspond to the phoneme /k/ than /ch/ or /s/. The blended sounds came a bit later. It seems to me that most alphabet books do not follow any sort of predictable pattern...of any sort!

My old college used to have big plastic trashcans sitting around to collect recycling. Lest we be unsure of their function, they were helpfully labeled "Can's."

:(

Namaste!

My old college used to have big plastic trashcans sitting around to collect recycling. Lest we be unsure of their function, they were helpfully labeled "Can's."


:lol That "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" author would have been a GREAT homeschooler.

The teacher said, "Oh, we can't do that, because one of our kids has an allergy to nuts." Perplexed, the mom explained that the macaroons were plain -- no nuts added. "But what about the coconut. You know...coconut!" the teacher replied.

Yeah. Right. Got it.

:lol any truly educated person knows macaroons are properly made with almond paste. (then again, almonds are stone fruits, & no more 'nuts' than a coconut.) 'cocoNUT'. :p :lol

Well now I'm completely confused, So this is inbetween editing a friend's story and reading Berenstain Bears books (ie: not exactly focused ) but I can't find anything online about palms not being trees. Maybe it's something else you're thinking of?

Maybe they were thinking of bananas? there a herb not a tree.

chimps aren't monkeys? Well, had I known that, I would have been anal about it as well!! :lol

That's what I was thinking. :wink

I might have been thinking of ferns. As in, prehistoric fern forests. They grew big like modern trees, but were they trees, really?

So ask a paleobotanist.

This is why my anthropologist self won't be concentrating much on botany when teaching DD science...plants are boring.

Well wadya know :D http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutother/banana?view=uk

Well, this is interesting. I always thought that "monkey" was a generic category in which chimps, apes, etc. were included. Now I know better.

But I am always pointing out those kinds of mistakes on signs and products--"it's 10 items or fewer, not 10 items or less," "it's 'everyone has his own,' not 'everyone has their own.'" My kids will know better even if no one else does!

"it's 'everyone has his own,' not 'everyone has their own.'" My kids will know better even if no one else does!

I am guilty of this one but I'm not letting it go :lol I hate how the default is always male. Making the default female doesn't sound right either (maybe just because I'm used to it being male). I know some books alternate but when I'm talking (or writing) I just find I like the sound of they/their. I actually wish more people would use it and this would become standard but until then, I'll take the bullet for being grammatically incorrect (since everything else I write is such obviously perfect English :W )

You know, I keep thinking of this so I'll bring it up. I have no problem with a teacher (or a homeschooler!) not knowing something. If that teacher were presenting a lesson on coconuts then sure, I'd expect her to do the research, but otherwise I don't see anything wrong with her not knowing a coconut isn't a nut. That doesn't mean she's a bad teacher or stupid, it just means that she's human and she doesn't know everything there is to know in the entire world. As I'm often telling my dd, nobody does.

I think educational materials are different. If a product is being marketed as educational I expect the company to do research into what they are making and do it *right*. It doesn't mean the individuals responsible for the project need to know everything, just that they need to take the responsibility to find out what they need to know for that product. And if a person is teaching a class or giving a lecture that is also a product and they should do research and make sure they have the correct information. That's just my opinion though and obviously the corporate world doesn't agree with me :wink

As for me, the way I homeschool, I have no problem admitting my ignorance on lots of stuff :lol We just look things up together :)

I am guilty of the singular "they" too, in casual conversations (and MDC posts :bag: ), but I don't like it. And I've seen it in newspaper articles and advertisements and heard politicians, journalists, and teachers use it in their official capacities. I can understand using the singular "they" if you don't like the generic "he" and "he or she" sounds awkward, but what's really funny to me is when the singular "they" is used when the context refers to only one gender, e.g. "every woman should have the right to breastfeed their baby."

I agree that teachers shouldn't have to know everything, but they should know about the subject matter they're supposed to be teaching. There's a saying I don't quite remember, but it's something like, "It's not what you don't know that's the problem; it's what you know that's just not so." Or as Mr. Rumsfeld would say, there are known knowns, and there are known unknowns, but there are also unknown unknowns, things that we don't know we don't know (or however he said that, I'm paraphrasing).

A few other things I'm anal about:

"Irregardless" and "misunderestimate" are not words, in any context.
Apostrophes are not used to form the plural of words. The only time an apostrophe is appropriate to form a plural is in the plural of letters, numbers, and symbols, e.g. "the word alarm contains two a's."
Quotation marks are used for titles and for directly quoting someone else's words. In informal usage, they are also used when the speaker or writer wants to distance himself from the words or indicate that he does not believe them, e.g. "Our 'representatives of the people' voted themselves another pay raise." I'm honestly not sure what some of these people think quote marks are for; they make no sense in the context. The funniest misuse of quote marks I've seen was on a sign advertising "chicken bits" in quotation marks.
Adjectives modify nouns; adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Predicate adjectives modify the subject and follow a linking verb.
One that perplexes me is dropping the final D--"I use to do that," "He was suppose to go there," "She was prejudice against me," etc. In writing, I mean, not just pronunciation. When did this happen?I'm too young for this...

I am guilty of the singular "they" too, in casual conversations (and MDC posts :bag: ), but I don't like it.

Same here. I think it's a lot like that awful expression "a whole 'nother thing" - in that it's so much a part of our cultural usage that it happens without our noticing.

One that perplexes me is dropping the final D--"I use to do that," "He was suppose to go there," "She was prejudice against me," etc. In writing, I mean, not just pronunciation. When did this happen?[/LIST]I'm too young for this...

I think it's because people - Americans, at least - grow up hearing them pronounced that way, as if they end in s - so assume they're spelled that way.

- Lillian

Same here. I think it's a lot like that awful expression "a whole 'nother thing" - in that it's so much a part of our cultural usage that it happens without our noticing.

Does that come from people thinking that "another" is two words, "a nother"? I thought it was just a--I forget the word for it, but adding or changing a sound to make it more pronouncable (like "import" instead of "inport"). "A whole other" is a bit harder to say than "whole nother."

I think it's because people - Americans, at least - grow up hearing them pronounced that way, as if they end in s - so assume they're spelled that way.

Probably, but there are plenty of words that we mispronounce but don't misspell... it just surprises me how common it is.


I heard about a recent study of 18-24 yr olds, less then half of whom could locate Iraq on a world map or locate Louisiana on a U.S. map... oh yeah, we're sure depriving our kids of quality education by keeping them out of school :eyesroll

As far as language, I tend to not be so uptight about it. In the wonderful world of linguistics, if you say it, and the other person understands it, it's correct.

Spoken English has a variety of dialects, none of which particularly closely match Standard Written English (though some come a little closer than others). There are more extreme cases of this disjuncture, though: just look at Chinese, where mutually unintelligible dialects are spoken but they all use the same writing system. Of course, that's a lot more pragmatic with a non-phonetic writing system.

But while monkeys and apes are subsets of primates, apes are not subsets of monkeys. So says this ape! Really, it's an "us/them" categorization mentality. I think people who think of humans as not being primates more easily call any primate a "monkey". But humans are apes, just like chimpanzees. So unless you're a monkey's uncle, or your uncle was a monkey, you shouldn't diss your cousins by calling them monkeys.

And DD is looking at me like I'm nuts because I'm laughing at myself.

BTW--why isn't a coconut a nut? I thought it was just a really big nut. Seriously. Plants are SO not my thing...

Does that come from people thinking that "another" is two words, "a nother"? I thought it was just a--I forget the word for it, but adding or changing a sound to make it more pronouncable (like "import" instead of "inport"). "A whole other" is a bit harder to say than "whole nother."

I don't think it particularly comes from thinking :lol ... You can say "That's another thing," or "That's a whole other thing," but people are absent-mindedly combining the two to be saying "That's a whole 'nother thing." :shrug I'm not even particularly fussy about the way people talk, but I can't understand why newscasters and commentators on national radio and televison are saying, in effect, "That's a whole another thing." - Lillian

My 27 month old saw a picture of tomatoes in a magazine at the doctor's office today. She said, "Look! Apples!" and I didn't bother to correct her. There's plenty of time for that later. We both knew what she was talking about.

I probably would have bought the toy. By the time she was old enough to care about distinctions, she would be too old for the toy. In language development part of the process is finding certain characteristics and learning to group them based on those. So to a 2-3 year old, an ape, gorilla, chimp, or spider monkey would all be "monkey." A mule, burro, and horse would all be "horse." Later on they refine their observations skills and realize, "Oh, a donkey is small, furry, and has big ears and a black stripe down it's shoulders. A horse is tall and lean and has a loose tail. A mule is like a horse but has big ears and a tail that is more like a rope at the top instead of loose like a horse's."

As far as language, I tend to not be so uptight about it. In the wonderful world of linguistics, if you say it, and the other person understands it, it's correct.

That's how I feel! :) Not for the monkeys on the educational toy though :lol But I don't nit pick at all when it comes to people talking - accents, regional variations, cute family words - that stuff is all cool with me :D

Oh, and, uh Lillian? You keep using that phrase and I keep thinking it sounds cute. I just may use it. Or is that a whole nother ball of wax? :bolt

Oh, and, uh Lillian? You keep using that phrase and I keep thinking it sounds cute. I just may use it. Or is that a whole nother ball of wax? :bolt

:moon

But how interesting that you should say that! Because people do seem to think it's cute :eyesroll! Personally, I'd rather hear "ain't" any day of the week. Although that's a whole other thing. :D - Lillian

I like "ain't" :) But I only use "ain't" when I'm putting on a silly accent (which my kids hate - I am forbidden from using "funny voices" - ah, all that wasted talent). There was a whole discussion once (on TAO maybe? ) about why "ain't" fell out of favor and other contractions didn't. I can't remember if there was a definite answer.

But while monkeys and apes are subsets of primates, apes are not subsets of monkeys. So says this ape! Really, it's an "us/them" categorization mentality. I think people who think of humans as not being primates more easily call any primate a "monkey". But humans are apes, just like chimpanzees. So unless you're a monkey's uncle, or your uncle was a monkey, you shouldn't diss your cousins by calling them monkeys.

That makes sense. I remember hearing a while ago about some guy who wanted to bring his pet monkey on an airplane with him using the argument that since humans were related to monkeys, the monkey was his "family member." I'm not sure what the airline did...

BTW--why isn't a coconut a nut? I thought it was just a really big nut. Seriously. Plants are SO not my thing...

A coconut is the fruit of the coco palm tree. I don't know why it's called a coconut instead of a coco fruit though.

Okay I looked it up online and found this on a website for a company that sells coconut oil:


21. Are coconuts a nut, fruit, or vegetable?
Actually, they can be classified as all three in some form. The meat of the coconut is usually referred to as fruit, and the coconut itself is the nut, or seed, that will reproduce into a coconut palm tree if allowed to sprout and grow, and the oil made from coconuts is classified as a "vegetable oil" in terms of commodity trading.

I also found a botany type site that basically described the husk on the outside of the coconut as the fruit, and the coconut itself as the seed/nut.

However, as they are palm nuts, I would think they don't fall into the same allergen category as deciduous tree nuts.