TURK-WASH

Last week my students laughed in my face, not in a bad way. I was laughing too. I was thinking, “Are they serious?” They were thinking that I had gone mad – totally crazy. Right now, I can’t even remember why, but we were talking about colors. One student repeated a word about three times and no matter how hard I tried I could not understand her. Finally, after about the fifth try and some explaining from her I figured it out, “Oh, the color you mean is turquoise”. This is when the laughing began. The sweet little girl giggled a little as she responded, “No, Miss Sullivan, turk-wash”.
“Turk-WASH?”
“Yeah Miss Sullivan, turk-wash, like the color of your shirt.”
“I think you mean turquoise”
More laughter.
I could hear a few students mimicking me, “turk-coy-z?” “turrkwoys?”. As I repeated, “Turk-wash?”
Eventually, we were all laughing. The dilemma wasn’t solved, it was better left just as it was.