More from Mister Rogersā¦
ā¦on this day, when he receives a visit from Mrs. McFeely and a springer spaniel, she says that she has to bring the dog āback to his ownerā, and Mister Rogers makes a face. The cameras stop, and he says, āI don't like the word owner there. It's not a good word. Let's change it to ābring the dog homeā.ā And so the change is made, and the taping resumesā¦
ā āCan You Sayā¦ Heroā by Tom Junod
āThere were no accidents on Mister Rogersā Neighborhood.ā He took great pains not to mislead or confuse children, and his team of writers joked that his on-air manner of speaking amounted to a distinct language they called āFreddishā.
Fundamentally, Freddish anticipated the ways its listeners might misinterpret what was being said. For instance, Greenwald mentioned a scene in a hospital in which a nurse inflating a blood-pressure cuff originally said, āIām going to blow this up.ā Greenwald recalls: āFred made us redub the line, saying, āIām going to puff this up with some air,ā because āblow it upā might sound like thereās an explosion, and he didnāt want the kids to cover their ears and miss what would happen next.ā
ā āMister Rogers Had a Simple Set of Rules for Talking to Childrenā by Maxwell King
Language is the ability to think. Language can be transformative. Language is power. I wouldnāt write to you four days a week if I didnāt think so. Language is also natural, common, easy. Too often we hurl it around without thinking about what it might do when it lands. Mister Rogers always thought about the landing.
Someoneās an angry little flower.
Letās go back to 1983 for five minutes (Spotify).
An interesting effect of not being stuffed with social media and news is that Iāve spent two days properly reflecting on the things Iāve watched and read about Mister Rogers. A less-distracted brain is a delightful thing to have.
Grow slowly
Jeff