Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Kingdom Ethics 101

This exchange took place today between Dr Laurel and The Little Man (4):
The Little Man: "I just prayed to God that He would bring the Kingdom of Fast. So, now this world is the Kingdom of Fast. Look how quickly I can walk now."
[He walks very quickly away]

...[about an hour later, Dr Laurel is getting him to clean the bathroom mirrors with Windex, which is not going so well]...

The Little Man: "Look how fast I can spray Mommy." [very fast spraying with maximum Windex and mess]
Dr Laurel: "That is fast, but it might be better if we did it slow and steady, like this [demonstrating effective wiping of bathroom mirrors].

The Little Man: "There are no snails in the Kingdom of Fast." [fast spraying and wiping continues]
Love Kingdom ethics.

______________________

5 comments:

Jenny said...

So funny!

byron smith said...

Amen, preach it little brother!

(BTW, will he learn how to spell "mummy" and to use "-ly" on abverbs once he arrives in Oz?) :-)

Clifford Swartz said...

There are no snails in the Kingdom of Fast? Wonderful.

Anonymous said...

Byron,
I'm confident that upon arriving in Australia the boy and his mother will use "-ly" on adverbs when it is appropriate, just as they would (and do) in America (it's so convenient that English is spoken in both countries, isn't it?)

However, it is my greater hope that he would never become a lapdog to the Rules of English Grammar and so fawn on them as to slavishly attach "-ly" endings even where they are not needed, such as when he might be alluding to some other work (in this case, the "Tortoise and the Hare").

Is it just me or do you also think "-ly" would feel a little out of place in the following sentence:

“Sadly, Captain Nelson arrived a bit LATE to his sister's surprise birthday party, and so missed the champagne toast and the warm and self-effacing speech made by Napoleon.”

(No quibbles about the fact that Nelson loved and lauded punctuality, please)
:)

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't it be fantastic if when the rest of us prayed we had The Boy's amount of faith? I love that at that age there is no question of whether or not God will answer, or even if He heard - we should all pray that way!