When we did our first lesson in vulgar fractions at school
there were children who giggled.
I didn't get the joke.
'Vulgar', they said.
'Why's that funny?' I said.
'Rude,' they said.
'What's rude?' I said.
'Vulgar,' they said.
I had never met the word 'vulgar'.
In fact, my mother and father
were people who the kind of person
who used the word 'vulgar'
might have called 'vulgar'.
But my mum and dad didn't call it 'vulgar'.
So I didn't get the joke.
