BOY TRAPPED

Where the inside of my mind leaks onto the screen.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

nin-JA-go

It's no wonder my kids are so argumentative.

Kirk and I have been having an ongoing debate about the pronunciation of a new household fascination ever since Adam spotted a certain book at the book fair.

I looked at the series title.  NINJAGO.  I mentioned it to Kirk.  "Adam really wants a nin-JA-go book," I said.

It's "NIN-ja-go," he corrected me, plenty of condescension included.

"Really?  I don't know why, but I really thought it would be said nin-JA-go."  But I shrugged it off when he explained that they're NINjas.  And legos.  NIN-ja-go.

The next day at the book fair, I asked one of the parent volunteers, "Are you all sold out of the NIN-ja-go books?"

"Oh, you mean the nin-JA-go books?  Yeah, we sold out yesterday."

I triumphantly lorded my new discovery over Kirk.  Try saying this one out loud dripping with sass and attitude.  "The moms at school all say it's nin-JA-go.  And their kids have been reading the books longer, so I think they're right."  Yeah... all the moms.  'Cause I totally checked.

But he stuck to his guns.  "Nope.  They're wrong.  It's all based on a cartoon series.  About NINjas that are made out of legos.  It's NIN-ja-go."

I actually let it drop and forgot about it.  [I don't know how this happened?!]  Until Alex's birthday party when I overheard my nephew Mason talking to Alex.  Somewhere in his sentence I clearly heard him reference a nin-JA-go.  Petty as I truly am, I hurried upstairs to share my newfound knowledge with Kirk.  Ya know... just to educate him.  I wouldn't want him to embarrass himself walking around saying NIN-ja-go.  So in the name of philanthropy, I pointed out his error.

Fed up, as I often get, with my inability to force him to admit he's wrong, I turned to the solver-of-all-our-disputes.  The internet.  I found a commercial in which the announcer clearly used the pronunciation of nin-JA-go.  And Kirk said, "Hm."

And we moved on.

The moral of the story here, is that I was right...  thankfully our kids don't always argue like we do.

Alex received a Ninjago toy for his birthday, which he and Adam worked on together for two solid hours without argument, reminding me of the beauty of teamwork.



For our part, Kirk and I did our best to keep the redheaded destroyer out of the way.



And don't let Kirk convince you that this was one of those times he was just opposing me to watch me get all riled up.  I'm fairly certain it wasn't.  :)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I wanted to click "nin-JA-go" on the FB survey because languages, especially Spanish typically put the emphasis on the second to last syllable. Then I remembered that the word was from a series with ninjas that were legos so I clicked "NINJA-go"

Matt Adams said...

"...in the name of philanthropy." Love it. Once in an argument with a friend, I told her, "I do *not* always need to be right. I am just defending truth."