# “My son is learning four letter words." **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 31, 2012, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314 "2012-08-31T22:27:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/21 "2012-09-01T06:01:30Z")
To expand further, “swear words” may be used to denote "profanity"in India. “Four-letter-words” have still not caught on. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/22 "2012-09-01T06:12:46Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Joan Baez even wrote a song named [“Love is just a four-letter word”](http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/love-is-just-a-four-letter-word/id301083622?i=301083645). Bob Dylan wrote it; Joan Baez recorded it. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/23 "2012-09-01T08:17:27Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I am not sure what this has to do with dialect, it is a matter of idiom. Substitute _variety_, then. People from different areas will use different idioms to express the same thing. My point is that, in my experience, Koreans, for example, are fully aware that people from Busan or Daegu will use different expressions than the people in Seoul; however, those same people have a difficult time grasping that the English language also has the same variety. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/24 "2012-09-01T12:07:27Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Commonly understood by native speakers of the language. To native speakers of English, the most common meaning of “four-letter-word” is a dirty word. Yes, but the TLDR of the rest of my post is that this lady is likely to not quite meet the OP’s image of “a native speaker of English”; there is a high probability that it wasn’t her most-used language from birth and that she learned it simultaneously with several others, whereas for an Aussie, Brit or American, “native speaker” implies “monolingual”_; not only that, but many times (I hope the Aussies are less bad about this than the Americans, not having Hollywood there) they expect idioms to be mutually understandable - who mentioned baseball? Ah yes, **njtt**. There is a greater divergence in vocabulary and idioms (note I’m not talking about pronunciation) between Indian varieties of English and those of the UK, the US or Australia_ than between any two of those three. As confirmed by the very-appropriately named **indian** … - want the addy of my Translation Grad School? According to every teacher whose primary language was English, it’s impossible to be “native” in more than one language. As one of my classmates said after one such rant, “all I know is, when someone wants a translation into Galego I’m Galego, when into Spanish I’m Spanish, and when into Dutch hey that’s my mother’s tongue!” That’s something people who grew up monolingual have serious problems understanding. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/25 "2012-09-01T12:50:25Z")
Often Indians don’t seem to grasp that their pronunciations are way off what people in other countries are used to. And I have to say, that sounds like an incredibly dumb and ineffective way to learn to read. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/26 "2012-09-01T13:22:06Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > And I have to say, that sounds like an incredibly dumb and ineffective way to learn to read. It is. You need to use a little bit of Look and Say (which is what it sounds like is being described in the OP), because not all words are phonically decodable and some words, the high frequency ones, need to be learnt quickly so that the child can access books, but synthetic phonics is currently the best way to learn to read because once children can blend phonemes they can self-teach and build their own vocabulary. The goal is to transition the child to mental orthographic representations, which is how it is believed we read as adults, but that only happens when the child is reading fluently and frequently and they will make the transition naturally. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/27 "2012-09-01T13:27:54Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > Sometimes talking with Indian coworkers (or especially when I was in grad school and talking with Indian grad students or postdocs) I want to burst out laughing. The language can be so archaic and so formal compared to even modern British English, much less modern American English. At times it feels like living in a Victorian novel or receiving orders from the Admiralty or something. > > And while it is a matter of idiom, not all idioms translate from country to country. How many baseball idioms are present in American English? Some might be fairly common in other countries due to the sheer power of American culture but probably not all of them. I’ve also noticed that Indian English can sound archaic. I used to work with this guy who used “whosoever” all the time. Baseball idioms are all over the place in US English. We have the whole “three strikes and you’re out” metaphor, basically meaning that a person can mess up two times, often in terms of behavior, and it’s not too bad, but the third time is when you clamp down on them. We have the “base” system of dating (e.g. “I got to third base with her”), which is an article in itself. You can be “way out in left field”, you can be “in sight of home plate”, you can hit something “out of the park” if you achieve a great success, you can “touch base” with someone, you can play in the “big leagues”, and you can cover all your bases. > **[Glossary of English-language idioms derived from baseball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_English-language_idioms_derived_from_baseball)** > > This is an alphabetical list of common English-language idioms based on baseball, excluding the extended metaphor referring to sex, and including illustrative examples for each entry. Particularly American English has been enriched by expressions derived from the game of baseball. > See also the Glossary of baseball terms for the jargon of the game itself, as used by participants, fans, reporters, announcers, and analysts of the game. Ballpark, in the ballpark, ballpark figure, and out of the ball... ---
**Author:** ![blueslipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@blueslipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blueslipper)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/28 "2012-09-01T21:12:26Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > OP: You’re dealing with a phenomenon I’ve encountered in a few different countries. Many people who are fully aware of the existance of dialects in their own language simpy cannot grasp that English also has dialects. I think this is a very good point. When I pointed out to my Indian colleagues that maybe some of their customers they speak to on the phone may not understand all their Indian English expressions, one replied with 'There is no Indian English or other countries English. There is only English." The other one said people in London understood him and that I undestood him. Well I have lived in 5 countries including 3 years in Japan. I have worked with Indian Australians for years in Melbourne. I studied linguistics at university. I am not surprised that I can understand him. But people in country towns may not understand all his Indian English. One thing he said was “Are there any alphabets in front of the numbers?” He was asking about a reference number that usually has 2 letters in front of it. When I asked him does that mean ‘letters’ when you say ‘alphabets’ he thought I was being facetious. He said everyone knew that usage. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/29 "2012-09-02T04:07:53Z")
continuing the hijack into the land of “what do you mean, it’s not like this everywhere?”… In a project involving factories in over 60 countries, there’s enough people involved that you inevitably run into some who haven’t left home very often if at all; when the company is good at employee retention, you run into people who have only known that one company, that one factory, that one way of doing things. You run into people like that gentleman who, upon being told that “kg/gallon” was not an acceptable density unit, claimed that “it’s the one everybody uses!” We referred to those people as the “‘the thumb is mine’ people”, after a strip (a Mafalda) where Miguelito (about 5yo) is playing at hiding a belvedere on top of a building with his thumb; Mafalda, a bit older and ancient beyond her years, asks “but do you know why you see the thumb bigger than the tower?” and Miguelito answers “yes, because the thumb is MINE”. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/30 "2012-09-02T04:21:50Z")
_Bozuit Often Indians don’t seem to grasp that their pronunciations are way off what people in other countries are used to. [/I_\*] Agreed 100%. “While in Rome …” _ **And I have to say, that sounds like an incredibly dumb and ineffective way to learn to read.** _ How? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/31 "2012-09-02T04:37:59Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > English spelling is not “mere happenstance.” It certainly has a lot of variety, but that does not mean it’s just chance. True. Nevertheless, “teaching” a child to read by a progression of increasing number of letters in words is just asinine. That she doesn’t know the implication of the expression “four-letter word” pales in comparison to such a delusional idea, and her apparent ignorance of the cognitive processes involved with learning to read. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/32 "2012-09-02T04:42:44Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > True. Nevertheless, “teaching” a child to read by a progression of increasing number of letters in words is just asinine. > > That she doesn’t know the implication of the expression “four-letter word” pales in comparison to such a delusional idea, and her apparent ignorance of the cognitive processes involved with learning to read. Oh! I got it now. She was progressing from letters of Alphabet to two-letter words and so on. This is Indian way of teaching.😉 ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/33 "2012-09-02T04:56:06Z")
> [@Indian](#): > > Oh! > > I got it now. > > She was progressing from letters of Alphabet to two-letter words and so on. This is Indian way of teaching.😉 They may _teach_ reading that way, but that’s not how the children _learn_ it. Children usually learn to read despite misguided pedagogy. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/34 "2012-09-02T06:51:08Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > They may _teach_ reading that way, but that’s not how the children _learn_ it. Children usually learn to read despite misguided pedagogy. Agree. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/35 "2012-09-02T11:05:03Z")
> [@Indian](#): > > How? Because that’s not how people learn to read. You don’t just learn words in some logical order, you learn words that are often used, or perhaps even random ones. Maybe you start with “cat” and “dog” but the next word might be “rabbit”. Really **guizot** put it best. ---
**Author:** ![blueslipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@blueslipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blueslipper)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/36 "2012-09-02T21:09:32Z")
> [@Indian](#): > > Oh! > > I got it now. > > She was progressing from letters of Alphabet to two-letter words and so on. This is Indian way of teaching.😉 That is interesting considering her kid is in a school in Melbourne and is the only Indian kid in the class. The school is teaching that way, not the mother. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/37 "2012-09-03T02:38:00Z")
I thought mother was home-schooling the kid.:dubious: I checked with some teachers here in India. None of them adopt the two-letter to three-letter to four-letter words. They were surprised too. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/38 "2012-09-03T10:18:52Z")
I’m also surprised to have learnt this teaching method actually comes from a school. Perhaps he knows how to read to a reasonable level for his age, and he’s actually learning to spell the slightly less common words? I thought kids knew how to read before school anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/39 "2012-09-03T10:44:16Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > I thought kids knew how to read before school anyway. No: that happens sometimes (more easily in some languages than in others), but children are not expected to be able to read before starting first grade, much less previous ones. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314/40 "2012-09-03T11:37:56Z")
My kindergarten teacher was shocked to learn I was already literate (age 5 when I started school). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-son-is-learning-four-letter-words/633314.md?page=3)