Sax-o-what?

"On the bus," the girls began their story, "Florencio kept saying the s-word over and over again."

"But not the one that rhymes with spit," Miriam clarified.

I suppose Andrew and I looked a little mystified because she added, "The one The Doctor calls the TARDIS."

"Oh!" I laughed. "Sexy?"

"Is that a swear word?" Rachel asked. "Or just a bad word?"

"Well, it's not a swear word. It's not even necessarily a bad word, but it can be an inappropriate word."

"Like, Florencio was saying sexy instead of Lexi," Miriam said.

"That would definitely be an inappropriate use of the word," I said. "It's a bit more of a grown up word, so really I don't think elementary students have a reason to say it at all."

"Except, like, sex is another word for gender," Rachel said.

"Yes," I said. "But that's different from the word sexy."

"And sex!" Miriam said. "Like the nickname for sexophone! Instead of saying sexophone you can just say "He plays the sex!'"


Andrew and I lost it at that point and laughed to the point of tears. Zoë quickly joined in because she's a social laugher, and soon the other kids were laughing as well. Our table was quite boisterous for a few minutes before Miriam finally sniffed, "I don't get it."

"It's saxophone," I told her. "He plays the sax."

"It's named after some guy. Alfred Sax? Adolfe Sax?" Andrew said.

It was Adolfe Sax. He invented the saxtromba, saxtuba, and the saxhorn, in addition to the saxophone. He was all about that sax.

"He's from Belgium," Andrew informed us. "So maybe that's where his name comes from: The Saxons."

"And don't forget the Saxon genitive," I said. "Those Saxons, inventing all the things."