Have you ever heard the song, "Who Let the Dogs Out?" by the Baha Men? It was annoying when it came out in 2000 -- and it's become iconically-annoying in the decade since.

Well, imagine that song filtered through the annoyance of the Literal-Translation Game: translating from English to Dutch on the fly, without much thought for cadence and syncopation, without much thought for the peculiarities of syntax and figurative language, without any concerns regarding the number of syllables to be crammed into any particular line of the song. It's a fun game for foreigners to play (I admit that I am a regular participant in this activity); but it's also pretty darn annoying for anyone else who has to listen to it. And it's especially annoying for anyone to listen to the Literal-Translation version of the Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out?" -- or perhaps I should say "Wie laat de honden los?"

And now, imagine this scenario specifically involving a group of nine-year-old boys -- singing the song together any time that the word "dog" is mentioned in their school classroom, any time they go out onto the school playground, or any time that they feel like it on a school field trip or a moment of boredom. That's taking the annoyance to a whole new level. It sounds almost unbearable. Almost impossible.

Yet in talking with Elliot yesterday, I learned that this scenario is not only possible. It's practical reality. It's happening in Elliot's class at school. And my son is one of the main perpetrators of this phenomenon, conspiring with two other boys in the class to bust into "Wie laat de honden los?" whenever the moment arises. Unthinkably annoying, isn't it? Yet believe it or not, I'm actually entertained by the thought. He must be a chip off the old block -- or perhaps I should say, "een stukje vanaf het oude blok" -- after all.