Lost in Translation

I have to share a funny story from our weekend in Texas. We were driving to the airport in San Antonio and for some reason Daniel and his dad were discussing various things that Wesley had learned in school {many, many years ago}. Wesley mentioned that he had had a teacher in the third grade who had attempted to teach his class some basic french phrases.

For some background: Wesley grew up in Woodbury, TN which is fairly rural and this would have been close to 40 years ago, so we were surprised when he mentioned this little tidbit of information. Daniel asked him if he remembered anything from his third grade french and Wesley said that his teacher had taught him one phrase that had stuck in his head all of these years...

"Comment bobbity boo."

Say what??? 

Now for some background on me: I lived in Canada when I was in the 4th-6th grade and part of our curriculum was to take a daily french class. My teacher was from Quebec and she drilled phrases {with correct pronunciation} into our heads for years.

So when Wesley said this phrase I had no idea where he was coming from. It just didn't make sense. I had him repeat it a couple of more times and my brain reached back to years ago when I studied french {I took it up again in high school, but learning from a southern woman just wasn't the same and I don't think that I ever learned any more than what I had learned in elementary school in Canada}. Anyways, it finally struck me that he must have been trying to say, "Comment allez vous?" Which means "How are you?" 

The whole conversation gave me a good chuckle and now Wesley knows the correct way to ask a person how they are doing!