A Hard Choice to Make

Conversation around the dinner table a few nights ago:

Fourteen: What languages do you think you’ll choose next year when you’re in Year 7, Ten?

Ten: Erm… I think I’d like to learn Napoleon.

Stifled guffaws from Fourteen.

Husband: Hmm, Napoleon, is that a language?  Where do they speak that?

Ten: At the North, um, you know, the North Pole.

Me: Are there people at the North Pole?  Who lives there, Ten?

Ten: The Inuits.

Fourteen: Napoleon’s not a language, Ten.

Pause.

Ten: Well, anyway.  I’d also like to learn that language that’s got a different alphabet with symbols.

Me: Like Arabic or Chinese, do you mean?

Ten: No. Hearts, squares, stars and hands, things like that.  You know.

Me: Do you mean Wingdings?!

Fourteen: You want to learn to speak Wingdings?  Ha ha.  That’s not a language, there aren’t any words.

Ten (Backpedalling furiously): No, I don’t want to learn how to speak it, just to write it.

Aww, that’s my boy!