Girl Scout Cookie time

It’s Girl Scout Cookie time! Yeah! During this season you cannot go round to someone’s house who has a daughter without being knobbled to buy some, because chances are she is in the girl scouts and she’s wanting to sell you some cookies for a fair old price.

It’s cookie time!

But it’s all for a good cause, of course. Actually, I have no idea what the money goes to, so I decided to find out.

First of all, this is why girl scouts sell cookies:

‘When a Girl Scout sells you cookies, she’s building a lifetime of skills and confidence. She learns goal setting, decision-making, money management, people skills, and business ethics—aspects essential to leadership, to success, and to life.

By putting her mind and energies to something, a Girl Scout can overcome any challenge. There are no limits. She can be anything. She can do anything.’

Flippin’ heck! I’m going to get me a ton of cookies and get on downtown and sell them by the bucket load if it makes you feel like that! Wow, and to think I spent years brushing up on my marketing and PR skills in the UK, when I could have just joined the girl scouts in the USA and felt a million times more confident and totally brillopads about everything I did!

‘Success!’ ‘There are no limits!’ I hear ya! So, f*ck the cookies – I’m going to sell pizza and beer!

Ah, I mock the girl scouts, but really I think it’s very empowering for young women and good on them. I probably have a chip on my shoulder because I didn’t make it to Girl Guides (our UK equivalent) owing to the fact that I abandoned Brownies after an embarrassing incident at Brownie camp when I attempted to be Coco from Fame and failed miserably when I leapt off the stage, bruising my knee and my pride. Brownies was no longer for me. Plus, I wasn’t allowed to roll my skirt up an inch higher than it was supposed to be and you couldn’t get a badge for naming all the characters from Degrassi High, so Brownies was definitely not my thing.

Anyway, this is what the sales from cookies go towards:

“Cookie sale earnings enabled our Cadette troop to go kayaking on Lake Minitanka. While we were there, we got to take a cruise up the lake in the historic steamboat Minnehaha.”

Cookie sales got towards kayaking

“My troop of Ambassadors went to our state capitol last year to talk about encouraging girls in STEM careers. Thanks to our successful cookie sale, we’re coming back for the next legislative session.”

“Goal-setting and decision-making are some of the important skills we develop in the Girl Scout Cookie Program. My fellow Juniors and I decided to work in our community kitchen—where we can help make a difference!”

Hoorah for girl scouts!

A different pronunciation

I’ve been telling little Harry since we’ve been in the USA that the British and American ways of pronouncing words differ, and one is not right and one is not wrong.

Today he had to learn ‘Pat-a-cake’ (thank goodness I remembered it!) and talk about the long ‘a’ sound, as in ‘cake’, and the short ‘a’ sound, as in ‘pat’.

The other example of a short ‘a’ sound that was given in the text was the word ‘fast’. But Harry couldn’t get it, and I couldn’t say it with the short ‘a’ sound – for me, being a southern Brit, I had to say it was a long ‘a’ sound, which confused him further. In the end, we just said it as we say it, with the long ‘a’ sound.

Long ‘a’ or short ‘a’?

You can hear the differences here:

The American short ‘a’ pronunciation of ‘fast’
The British long ‘a’ pronunciation of ‘fast’

I left a note in Harry’s work book for his teacher to let her know that, when Harry says it with the long ‘a’ pronunciation, that is just how we [southern] Brits pronounce it, and neither pronunciation is right nor wrong, it’s just that how Harry says it is different from the American pronunciation.

Ah, language and culture – so interesting, hey?!

Forever different, but similar!