My Little Grammar Nazi

Posted by Jeffrey on May 4, 2009

A few weeks back, we bought a DIY mask for Jordan from Daiso, 1Borneo. It’s a 3D-like mask where you can color it first then use a straw to blow some air to inflate it. Back at home, I asked Jordan to get busy with his mask so that I can watch my channel on the tv.

Then suddenly, he exclaimed “Daddy! The people who make this mask write the instructions wrong oh!” (I try to follow his grammar closely here).

“Ya ka? What’s wrong?” I asked.

“See lah”. Then he showed me the following.

Then he pointed to the second circular diagram on the left and said “they say inflate a balloon, that is wrong because that means you can blow any balloon”.

Wow – I was surprised that he managed to catch this error. Then just to be sure he understood what he was talking about, I asked “So what is the correct word?”.

He replied “It should be ‘inflate the balloon’”.

I was flabbergasted! This kid is smarter than me when I was 16 years old! I was so surprised + shock + astounded I asked him to run to the kitchen and tell it to his mom.

Then I called out my wife to hear Jordan out. At first she was a little panicky because she thought something was wrong with someone (as a parent, you get these ‘something bad just happened’ with kids in the house all the time).

After she heard his argument, I can tell she was also surprised and proud with his observation. Well, with a payment of RM150 to the kindy every month, this should be the norm. Aisey ya ka? Hehehe.

Habis lah if he checks out this blog, I’m sure he’ll find a lot of grammar mistakes!

Anyway, I just hope his BM and Chinese is as good as his English!

p/s – The picture shows my Jordan a.k.a. little grammar nazi at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park taken last March

Posted under: Jordan