Les Gros Mots

So a popular game that I generally play with all of my classes as some point is the game where you write the name of someone famous on a small piece of paper, everyone exchanges papers, and then you stick it to your forehead.  We've all played it, right?


So yesterday I was playing it with one of my middle school classes and a lot of the students liked to cheat and look at their paper then ask me for a new one.  So I decided that if I was going to have to make up more names for them, I was going to make it difficult.


Originally the names that they wrote consisted of: Eva Longoria, Sponge Bob, the guy from Twilight, etc.  The names that I wrote were more like: Queen Elizabeth, Napoleon, Putin.


It's this last name that caused all the problems.  ALL of the kids were laughing uncontrollably and I naturally had no idea as to why. I'm sure most of you are also a little clueless as to why Vladimir Putin would make all of the students crazy, unless you speak French.


Putain (not Putin but whatever) is a curse word in French, or "un gros mot" as they all told me.  But of course, I knew that, just didn't think about it before I wrote the name down. Click here for a definition!


One learning experience after another.