Он идëт

The words Phoebe knows are sometimes shocking to me. 

We've had to have talks with our big kids about keeping their language sweet and kind and preschool because, oh boy! 

It's nothing terrible, as Rachel has noted (Phoebe's #1 insult is "rude"). But I still don't love these words spilling out of my sweet baby girl's mouth. 

For example...

This morning Rachel was helping Phoebe pick out an outfit and thought the outfit Phoebe had picked out was "weird" (a dress and pants, which I think is a fine outfit for a three-year-old). 

"I like weird," Phoebe told her. 

"Fine," Rachel said. "Wear your weird outfit."

"You're a little idiot," Phoebe hissed. 

She kind of swallowed the last word, however (because she knew it was a mean/bad word), so Rachel asked, "I'm a little what?"

"You're a little idiot!" Phoebe said more bravely. 

"Phoebe, that's not nice!"

"Well, Benny says it to Alexei!"

"It's not nice when Benny says it either," Rachel pointed out.

"But it is an example," Phoebe sang sweetly.

*****

So I told them that in Russian, idyot (идëт) means "coming." Like, "He's coming!" 

I remember once going to a puppet show in Russia (those were still common and popular as of 20 years ago—like, I don't know of very many dedicated puppet theaters in North America, but it seems like every town in Russia has one...or at least...mine did) and we English speakers were cracking up over one of the lines, which was just, "Он идëт! Он идëт! Он идëт!"

It means "He's coming! He's coming! He's coming!" but to our English ears it was very easy to hear, "He's an idiot! He's an idiot! He's an idiot!" 

There's no "to be" verb in Russia, really, and no determiners (a/the) either, so to say that one thing is another thing (for example that "he" is an "idiot"), you just say "he idiot" (Он идиот) and it sounds very similar to "he coming" (Он идëт).

Это шутка! It's a joke! 

(Which, by the way, is practically the name of the puppet theater in Voronezh—Шут (The Jester)).