Lydia’s teacher often has the kids write out the notes that she wants them to take home to their parents, in order to give them additional writing practice. This afternoon Lydia came home with slip of paper telling us that her class has swimming tomorrow. In Swedish this is “I morgon har vi bad.”

After I read the note, I left it lying on my desk. A little later, Tage picked it up and tore it into small pieces, giving one of them to Olof. “I wonder what he’s trying to tell me?” Olof asked as he handed me the scrap to read.

I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw that there was just one word on the piece of paper, and that Lydia had made a common spelling error, leaving out the silent “g” in “morgon”, so that the paper Tage gave to Olof read, simply, “moron.”