Figure of speech?

We were taught the British English in our school. Of course we were not able to catch and adapt the prep school accent, but we understood English language to the best possible capacity. In college some of us got really good grades in English literature and our lecturers were very happy. However, when my husband and myself spoke English here in New York, some people told us that our accent was cute Indian accent, some people acted like they could not understand us and some people told me that I sounded like I was from South Africa where people tried to copy Britishers but could not lose their local accent. I really could not care less about what I sounded like as long as I am not misunderstood.

 I started paying attention to various kinds of figure of speech. Hence, I learned that "hanging out" meant spending time together, "chilling" means relaxing,"cool" means good or fine and "drag" means boring. It is fine with me if people want to speak in their own English and since I live in New York, being flexible helped a lot. However, there are still some terms that I rather not say in front of children, because I have heard children say words that I am sure they did not learn on their own. Aside from swears and insulting words and phrases there are phrases that are now taken for granted as "figure of speech." One such phrase is "I want to kill myself." I have heard some adults use this when they meant to say that they cannot stand the situation. Sadly, little children are now using the phrase "I want to kill myself" just because they do not want to do something unpleasant like climbing a set of stairs. I hope that this phrase does not get in any of the dictionaries, whether they are children's or adults'. I am afraid that if this phrase becomes too easy then people who have suffered from emotional problems and have contemplated suicide will not get any attention. When a young man showed resentment towards his parent's divorce and tried to kill himself he was not given any attention, he was lucky because they saved him in time. I am afraid that next time a young person may not be as lucky, he may just do the unthinkable, after saying he wants to kill himself and people thought that it was a figure of speech.

World Book Day

Why do I have so many pictures of books on my post today? It is because today is World Book Day. Let us celebrate books today.  All kinds of books. From Nursery Rhymes to children's story books to young adults and adult novels. I don't think we can celebrate books enough, but let us start today. 

A lot of people say that it is hard

 to raise children in this world today.

 I am not sayingthat books make it easy to raise a child, but if a parent sincerely desires to keep his / her children out of trouble, giving importance to reading and spending maybe half an hour a day reading to a child will give him or her a healthy start to life.  I am not saying that there will not be any struggles or hurdles or hardships, but until we make an attempt to create an interest in our children to read we will not find out what else we need to do.   

Children love toys and they may not like it if we give them books for gifts, but for a change give them a fun book. Sooner or later they will look into it and start taking an interest in reading. After all, our professors must have been children once upon a time and their parents must have  given them some kind of incentive to read. Otherwise we would not have anyone to teach us.