When I was five years old my sister, 12 years old at the time, brought home from the library a book on marine creatures. It had lots of wonderful pictures and descriptions about sharks, whales and all other animals that lived in the oceans and lakes including turtles. It explained that turtles and tortoises are actually different species. One lives in water, the other on land, one has a smooth shell, the other hard and bumpy. Tortoises have short, sturdy feet while turtles have webbed feet with long claws. Tortoises also have a much longer lifespan than turtles with the oldest turtle having lived for 326 years while the oldest turtle was only 86 years. Armed with this knowledge, I set out to correct a grave error that was being taught in my nursery school.
An ABC chart hung in our nursery school classroom and it's pretty clear that from the description of turtles vs tortoises that it was a tortoise not a turtle in the t section. One day the teacher picked me to lead the other kids in reciting from the alphabet chart. She would often do this in the afternoons when it was hot and she was tired. I would go "A for Apple", like the teacher would do everyday and the other kids would repeat it after me. "A FOR AH-PPLE!", the other kids would shout back.
B for bicycle. "B FOR BICYCLE!"
C for Cat."C FOR CAH-AT!"
And so on.
"T for tortoise," I said, pointing to the picture when I reached T.
"T FOR TUR-TLE!"
"T for tortoise," I repeated.
"T FOR TUR-TLE!", they shouted back.
I tried a third time, "T for tortoise."
"T FOR TUR-TLE!!!" a third even louder reply that meant they weren't going to change their minds. To them it was a turtle.
