Wednesday Word: Stuffed Toy

Last weekend as we walked through the neighboring village of Bourton-on-the-Water, we stopped in at the Model Railway Museum and Store. In addition to lots of cool model railways (we will go back for a longer look later!) they had a small section in front with other toys, including some stuffed poodles on leashes.

Rebecca decided she needed a new stuffed animal, but I insisted she has plenty. I turned to my friend and said, "You should see how many stuffed animals Rebecca has at home." Both my friend and the lady behind the counter who overheard me looked a little perplexed. I immediately knew I had stumbled upon another divergence between American and English.

"That isn't what you call them, is it?"

Both shook their heads.

"Well, what would you call stuffed animals, then?"

The lady behind the counter replied, "Soft toys. If you say stuffed animals, it makes us think of taxidermy..."

No wonder they looked at me strangely when I told them of Becca's large collection!

Here's documentary photo evidence that I am not depriving my child by not purchasing a stuffed poodle with a leash (she actually already has two stuffed poodles, but she insisted that it was necessary to get one with a leash. Fortunately, she has since forgotten about it!)


And all you Americans remember, if you ever come to visit: stuffed animals=soft toys. Otherwise people here might think all Americans are avid hunters. (Well, that stereotype probably does exist already, come to think of it...)

Comments

  1. din 'illahi15 March 2018 at 07:49

    Good to know! 🙂
    Their terms seem more apt than ours.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rachel15 March 2018 at 08:21

      I agree! Although less specific, as soft toy sounds like it could be anything (as long as it was soft!)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Day in Our Life

Image
I'm joining in the Homeschool Day in Our Life link up at Simple Homeschool today. Since we just moved to England from New England, got sick, got sick some more, and then had the Epic Family Flu Experience, we haven't had very many days that have come anywhere close to normal recently. In fact, this day I'm documenting is the first relatively normal day we've had in months, as luck would have it (with an emphasis on the "relatively"--we still have more boxes to unpack!) So, while this day has gone smoothly and has been blessedly filled with routine, had I written this post just a week ago, it would have involved me curled up feverish on the couch with the kids recovering and using their iPads pretty much all day, and Eric cooking bacon and eggs for dinner (again). Just for full disclosure. But now we're finally healthy, so here is our day: 7-7:45 am: We all wake up at about the same time. In my ideal world, I'd wake up before everyone to write ...
Read more

Laundry

Image
I know this is a topic you've all been waiting for with bated breath: dirty laundry!! When we moved here, our house had a washing machine but no dryer. This is very common for houses here--even in our very affluent village we frequently see wash hanging out to dry (and, to be fair, sometimes getting rained on.) I think moving here as a home-manager and mother has made me notice more the habits and norms. When we lived in Syria Eric and I didn't have kids and I didn't spend much time thinking about running our home (to be honest, mostly because we had cockroaches and there were worms in our shower--I just sort of survived our home that year....) Anyway, coming here as a homemaker has made me think about things like laundry. And that means you lucky readers get a whole post on it! Our washing machine that came with our cottage was on its last legs, and so we replaced it with a washer-dryer combination. But since we don't have a vent we had to get a condenser...
Read more

Our Neighbors the Romans

Image
One of my very favorite things about living in England is the old stuff. I liked that about New England when we moved there from California, too, because in comparison there are older and better preserved houses in New England (with the exception of some cool adobe ruins in a park I used to play in when I was growing up...) But England really beats both California and Massachusetts hands down in the cool-historical-places-and-buildings game!  Pretty much anywhere you drive, you see old things (and old people, too, come to think of it, but that's a post for a different day...) Our little village has lots of history, people having lived here in settlements for two thousand years. And since people have lived here for so long, there are layers of history almost everywhere. Rumor has it, for example, that somewhere around Naunton are the ruins of the last standing round house, that was modeled on the old tribal construction techniques that existed before th...
Read more