У знакомых сын пришёл из школы с Certificate of Achievement. Ничего невероятного он не совершил, в международной олимпиаде не победил, но ребёнка в очередной раз простимулировали и похвалили. На этой неделе он лучший ученик. Этого мальчика часто хвалят и дают badges и сертификаты за заслуги. Искренне.
Если ребёнок не заслужил, то ему тоже могут выдать сертификат 'авансом' и даже по-английски похвалить.
Tatler как-то статью опубликовал с переводом хвалебных учительских фраз с британского на человеческий язык.
Статья старая, но я раньше не читала.
'Your daughter has lots of friends' Your daughter has kissed every boy in the class and gone a good deal further with at least five of them. Lord knows what she gets up to with the girls.
'Your son has lots of friends' Your son is the class bully.
'Timmy is so funny and probably the class joker, but could perhaps learn to restrain his exuberance just a little' Timmy needs to stop getting his winkle out in maths.
'Tabitha is mature beyond her years' Tabitha needs to stop dressing like Beyoncé and twerking with the geography teacher.
'Your child is very emotional' Last week somebody laughed at her dinosaur pencil case and it took three members of staff to get her teeth out of his shoe.
'Toby is very good at keeping himself occupied' Toby eats his own snot.
'Jack is keen to try new things' Jack eats other people's snot.
'Matilda is very ambitious' When Clarissa turned out to be slightly better than Matilda at the trumpet, Matilda threw Clarissa's trumpet into the street where it was run over by a truck.
'Patrick has a keen and self-motivated interest in science' Patrick found a dead rat in the playground and dissected it with a pair of compasses.
'Emily is a very religious girl' Emily drew a pentagram around Patrick's rat and spent a whole playtime chanting and trying to raise it from the dead.
'Martin is very grown-up for an 11-year-old' Martin smokes.
'Poppy's reading isn't great, but it's so obvious she loves books' Poppy ate The Tiger Who Came to Tea. It was like a dog killing a bird. Staples and all.
Полный текст на сайте Tatler
На одном из русскоязычных форумов я встретилась с переводом этой статьи и потрясающими экспертными комментариями.
Как можно жить в стране, где люди в глаза говорят одно, а думают совсем другое?
Легко. Мы прекрасно понимаем разницу между похвалой и формулой вежливости.
И примеры из статьи смешные, но почти реальные.