Knick-knack

Today I was going to teach my students This Old Man. However, I had to change that plan suddenly. Purely by coincidence, yesterday I looked up knick-knack in my dictionary during class. A student wanted a word, and I thought that was the nearest to what he meant. I entered it in my electronic dictionary so he could check, went to show it to him, and suddenly pulled it back before he could see it, gasping with shock.

What on EARTH were they thinking when they wrote that dictionary? Where do they get their misinformation? The English-Japanese dictionary I use (which is supposed to be a good one) gives knick-knack a VERY rude meaning as well as the usual one. It was so rude I didn't dare show the student. I told him I had the wrong word and gave him a different one, far less suitable.

I realized then that I would have to think of a new lesson plan for today. I could imagine my students singing:

With a knick-knack paddy-whack
Give the dog a bone
This old man came rolling home!

And then some bright spark would to know what it meant, look up knick knack, and get a nasty surprise, the sort that could get me into trouble. People BELIEVE dictionaries. They don't believe lowly English teachers. I can't imagine trying to explain that this word is NOT extremely uncouth slang for an unlikely variety of both male and female bodily parts.

(Unless I'm wrong, of course. Have any of my readers heard it used that way? Is it new? Have I been in Japan too long?)

In the end, instead of teaching This Old Man I settled on teaching them to play Simon Says, which I figured was a fun way to teach a few new vocabulary items as well as giving the students a game they can use when they become kindergarten teachers. I included the usual things, adapted for seated players (it is not easy to stand suddenly with the seating arrangements in that room), and to amuse myself I included,

"Simon says rub your head!"

The students loved the game, and got good at it very quickly. Also, they use a lot of hair gel and other gunk on their heads, so after they'd rubbed their heads multiple times the resulting funny hairstyles stuck quite nicely. They didn't notice because they were watching me so closely and the game was going so fast.

At the end of class I shouted,

"Simon says wave goodbye and fix your hair!"

They waved uncertainly and turned to stare at each other. Then there was a riot of pointing and laughing, and class finished with a mad scramble for mirrors and combs.

I'm still pretty annoyed about knick-knack, but I have to admit the hair thing cheered me up quite a lot, especially when it worked in two classes running.