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A student in class today asked why we capitalize the first person singular subjective-case personal pronoun, I, but none of the other personal pronouns. “Why don’t we capitalize ‘he’ or ‘she’?” the curious young lady asked.
Indeed.
“I’ll look into that,” I replied, scribbling in my little notebook.
The New York Times offers an answer:
England is where the capital “I” first reared its dotless head. In Old and Middle English, when “I” was still “ic,” “ich” or some variation thereof — before phonetic changes in the spoken language led to a stripped-down written form — the first-person pronoun was not majuscule in most cases. The generally accepted linguistic explanation for the capital “I” is that it could not stand alone, uncapitalized, as a single letter, which allows for the possibility that early manuscripts and typography played a major role in shaping the national character of English-speaking countries. (New York Times)
The whole article is quite interesting.
I go home to learn about life from my daughter. I learn what goes on in her school, what her teacher says, how her teacher teaches.
L, like any good story teller, doesn’t simply tell us, though, she shows: she begins incorporating various phrases from school into her own speech.
“You might have to” becomes the key phrase. “You might have to do this.” “You might have to move that.” I can imagine L’s teacher helping her with this or that task, explaining, “You might have to try it a different way, like turning it the other direction.” “You might have to wait. I believe someone else is using those crayons.”
“That’s okay” is another. I spill a little milk and mutter “Shoot” under my breath. L consoles me: “That’s okay.”
In a little over a month, Babcia will arrive for a several-week visit. It will be the first time in a year and a half that we’ve seen her; L has gone from being virtually an infant to being something more than a toddler.
L is excited about the arrival. She mentions it every now and then, and every time an airplane flies over our house, L points and asks, “Is that Babcia?”
It will be a time of linguistic development for L. She understands Polish perfectly, and she even mixes a few Polish words into her English vocabulary. She doesn’t speak more than these occasionally mixed up words. When Babcia arrives, though, it will be time to start speaking Polish.
Only recently it occurred to me that this might be almost as difficult as learning to speak English. Her initial instinct will be to speak English, and knowing L’s stubbornness, she is likely initially to refuse even to try. Babcia has a secret weapon, though: fluent Russian. She might turn the tables on L.
In our spam list was the following comment:
Ты как обычно радуешь нас своими лучшими фразами спасибо, беру!
Given the source, it seems to be a spam. But “беру” also seems to be an off-kilter version of my name, so I struggled with it a while.
Then I called K over, and we puzzled together.
Our Russian is rudimentary at best, but we pieced together a bit. Apparently, the spammer/commenter wanted to say that “You so…” (Ты как) something or other about “enjoying” or “being happy” about one’s own фразами. And it ends with the the first word most folks learn in Russian: “спасибо.” “Thanks.”
Of course, these days, one doesn’t have to trouble oneself over an unknown tongue — there are plenty of translation sites out there. Google translates it, “You’re normally so happy about us with the best phrases thank you, take.” Little help there. Still, it sounds quite spamolicious.
In response, I say “спасибо.” I think.
Update
Russian spam looks just like English spam: Спасибо автору блога за предоставленную информацию. “Thanks to the blog author for the information provided.”
At school, everyone is “Miss.” Miss Karen. Miss Cathy. Miss Deborah. Miss Brenda.
Miss Cathy — L’s favorite — works in Toddler I. L no longer sees her on a daily basis, but her eyes light up when she sees Miss Cathy coming.
Miss Karen, Miss Deborah, and Miss Brenda work in Toddler II, where L spends her days now.
I wondered whether L thinks “Miss” is just part of their name, but it’s become obvious that L has separated the “Miss” from the name. She understands it as a prefix, but she still doesn’t understand its significance. It’s a term she uses with individuals she really likes.
Hence, I am often “Miss Tata” now. K is “Miss Mama.” Our cat, “Miss Bida.”
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