My son has always been a keen watcher of Animal Planet, devouring everything from snake and crocodile programs to animal rescue and vets. Until recently he had to share their allotted watching time with the Disney videos, that his younger sisters preferred, and there was always much haggling about how long each got to watch their choice for. Over this last week though, the girls have developed an interest in the Steve Irwin series, that have been on when they get to watch, and when I came in to switch over to video they opted to keep watching Animal Planet.
This has resulted in some interesting creative play. Tonight while I was cooking supper I overheard:.
“The Mummy Snake is going to be crikey when I pick up her babies.”
The girls were trailing long pieces of wool around the floor, giving a fine commentary a la Steve Irwin as they went:
“I’ve got the crikey Dad, you’ve got the crikey Mum and lets both get the crikey babies.”
“Oooh he’s trying to bite me.”
“You go down there, mate.”
“This one’s the crikiest snake in the whole world!”
I think I’d better submit this as an emerging adjective to the Oxford Dictionary people. A new generation is growing up with a new vocabulary here!
What great commentary!
ReplyDeleteWhen I left the room to come check the blogs just now, my daughters were having a fashion show (we just got home with a big bag of treasures from the second hand store) somehow combined with a play about a polar bear.
South African children playing and using Australian slang, I love it!
ReplyDeleteThis is great! How I miss those days of imaginary play and new vocabulary. :)
ReplyDeleteLOL!! That's just brilliant. I rememebr as kids we used to love emulating TV shows (although we only had one channel when I was a kid!!) - my mother *loved* it when we were obsessed with a dubbed show called Salto Mortale about a troupe of trapeze artists and tried to emulate them by flinging ourselves off things!
ReplyDeleteI also laughed at the novel uses of "crikey" - made me think of my little nephew. On a recent visit to him in Port Elizabeth (when he was about three) we went out for a drive and one of the things we passed was a large yacht on a trailer in somebody's driveway. Sam stared, mesmerised, and then said, "mom, that boat is very jislaaik"! (untranslatable Afrikaans word meaning... well.. crikey!)