A Bilingual Child: Recasting as language modelling

Bilingual Child, passive language, recasting language, Curitiba, Brazil One of my original goals when starting this blog was to document my son’s bilingual acquisition. I had images of writing blog posts about his ability to communicate in English and Portuguese, and maybe even starting to learn a third language.

As so often in life, things haven’t quite panned out as I had hoped. I only speak English to Mr T, but he nearly always replies in Portuguese. I am not especially worried about this as I know he has an excellent passive knowledge of English because he understands what I’m saying and we have great conversations, just in two languages.

I am reluctant to ‘force’ him to speak English because I don’t want him to feel stressed out by trying to find words he doesn’t know. I am sure that when he is ready he will speak as much English as he wants and until then I value our own personal style of communication.

While I don’t make Mr T speak English, I do encourage him. If he wants me to get him something, or if he wants to be allowed to watch yet another episode of Ninjago, he has learnt that if he asks me in English he stands a better chance.

Another strategy I have used is one I have imported from teaching English in class. If a student makes a mistake one way of correcting them is to recast the phrase. For example, a student says ‘He like pizza’, the teacher can recast this by saying, ‘Oh, he likes pizza?’ The advantage of this is that you are able to provide a correct model while not necessarily obstructing communication. There is, however, a downside in that it is not entirely clear that all students notice this form of correction.

Nevertheless, I have used this tactic for the last couple of years with Mr T. If he says ‘Olha pai, meu dragão é vermelho!’ I recast it in English by saying something like ‘Wow, your dragon is red!’ In my mind this provides more exposure to language that he is interested and so, one day, will move from being passive to active.

We’ve started to see some improvement in his willingness to use English in the last few weeks, so maybe this strategy is starting to pay off. Or perhaps it is truly useless and something else we are doing is working instead.

I’m back!

After a long time away, I'm back to continue blogging about Brazil, Curitiba and bilingual families

Last July, I decided to take a break for a few weeks from blogging while I got some work done and caught up on my real life instead of my virtual one. I managed to get some work done, but then more and more came in and real life really is fun. This meant that a few weeks turned into a few months which became 9 whole months.

In all that time I was still thinking about blog posts I could write, but never actually sitting down and writing them. I kep putting off my comeback post until recently I realised that I would either just have to write something or give up on the whole idea completely. I enjoyed my time blogging so much I decided that I would just have to make the time to get back into it. And so here I am.

I’m aiming to write something roughly once a week, but we’ll see how that goes. I’m going to continue writing about bringing up a bilingual son, life in Curitiba and generally about Brazil. I have this idea in the back of my head to re-design the whole blog, but we’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, for now, it’s just good to be writing again. I hope to keep it up for a while and stop just thinking about it.

A Bilingual Child: Little Daddy

Brazil may be a huge country, but Brazilians love making everyone and everything in it as small as possible. One thing I noticed early on when learning Portuguese was the prevalence of the suffix –inho or –inha. They use it on the end of words to form the diminutive, and they use it all the time.

This means that a ‘coffee’ (café) becomes ‘cafezinho’, ‘grande’ (big) can be ‘a little bit big’ (grandinho), and ‘never’ (nunca) can be ‘never, ever’ when it is used as ‘nuncinha‘.

Even the word little itself ‘pequeno’ can be made even littler by saying ‘pequeninho’.

However, a small t-shirt (camisa) is not a camisnha because camisinha means condom.

This little suffix be used to mean something is actually small but not exclusively so. It can also be used to show familiarity, friendliness or that something is just so damned cute.

The basic rule is that you add –inho to masculine words and –inha to feminine words. However, if the word ends in the letter ‘z’, or vowel other than ‘a’ or ‘or’ then we have wither –zinho or –zinha, depending on the gender of the word.

English uses the diminutive a lot less than Portuguese. Footballers and children are fond of adding a ‘y’ to the end of names to sound familiar, so that you will hear them referring to their teammates as ‘Scholesy’ and ‘Giggsy’. In terms of more formal English, we have imported the suffix -ette from French so that we get words like ‘kitchenette’ and ‘cigarette’.

There are also different varieties of English around the world that have their own diminutive forms, like my dad shows his Irish roots by adding -een to the end of various words, for example, ‘Would you like a cuppeen of tea?’ is a common expression in our house.

In general, though, we don’t have a common diminutive form, and when we do use it we are nothing like as proficient as Portuguese speakers for employing it.

An advert for Coke in Ecuador makes fun of the Brazilian predilection for diminutives

Diminutives in Action

Mr T has picked up on this in his Portuguese and is enjoying playing with words and liberally adding –inho to them. He was begging me to let him watch Batman the other day and, because we have a rule that he can only watch at night the answer was no. But he is nothing if not persistent and so asked if we could watch Batmanzinho, or just a little batman.

Mr T couldn’t tell you the rule about when to say –inho or –zinho, but he has shown us that he is aware of it. He did this when playing with the English word ‘daddy’. First of all he called me ‘daddyinho’, but he knew this was wrong almost as soon as it came out of his mouth. A few seconds later he repeated himself, but this time said ‘daddyzinho’.

I liked this because it shows he is being creative with his language, playing with it to get new words and meanings. He also did it with a look on his face to suggest he knew what he was doing was a joke at my expense and that he also knew that he shouldn’t really be doing this in English.

The only downside is that I am little daddy and not big daddy. But at least my name isn’t Shirley.

Living in Curitiba: The Goldilocks City

The people from Curitiba, Curitibanos, are like most people I have met in that they love to complain about the weather. They are fond of lamenting the fact that there can be 4 seasons in each day because you must have clothes to cater for each of the seasons. In the summer, half of the locals continually moan about the insufferable heat, and in the winter the other half just bang on about how cold they are.

The last couple of weeks have seen an upswing in these grumblings as the weather has changed from a pleasant Indian summer into a wet and cold autumn. Not that I am complaining, though.

The Goldilocks City

I have written before about how the bi-polar weather here in Curitiba can be a problem when you have small kids, and this is mainly because the infrastructure in homes means it is often colder indoors than it is outdoors.

However, as far as the actual weather is concerned, I have come to the conclusion that Curitiba is blessed with what must be close to being the best weather in the world.

You see, when it’s hot it is rarely too hot. I have lived in both Rio de Janeiro and Taipei and in both of those cities it can regularly hit 40, and then stay there for months. In Curitiba if it gets to 35 it is unusual. As well as needing less air conditioning, this has the advantage of keeping dengue away (for now).

And when it is cold, it is rarely too cold. It can get down to zero for a few days, but never the -20 with snow from November to Easter that I experienced when I lived in Poland for a year. The advantage of this is that you can wear something other than shorts every day of the week.

And ok, it can be grey and overcast a lot. But not like London. I spent one winter in London when I didn’t see the sun for about 4 months. This was because I went to work on the underground in the morning and when I came home it was already dark. On the weekends it was either wet, cloudy or I was in bed recovering from a particularly hard night.

When it is cloudy in London, it can be cloudy for months on end. When it is hot in Rio, or freezing in Poland, it will be like that for a long time. In Curitiba, in the midst of a freezing and wet winter, we can have the odd beautiful, warm day. And when it’s been over 30 for a couple of weeks there is a good chance that the next few days will be wet and only in the 20’s.

We don’t get hurricanes or twisters. We don’t have earthquakes or volcanoes. We live far enough away from the sea, and high enough up the mountains to not be worried about Tsunamis or the rising seas due to global warming.

We get the odd storm which can result in some floods and sometimes a landslide, but nothing like other parts of Brazil. The storms we get are proper storms with rain lashing down, bolts of lightning and claps of thunder. Powerful, invigorating and amazing.

And so Curitiba is the Goldilocks city because it is never too hot and never too cold. In fact, it is usually just about right.

Images

Goldilocks by Vlolscraper CC BY-NC 2.0

Old, modern and organic in Curitiba by Radamés Manasso CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

A Bilingual Child: Linguistic Coincidence

On a trip to see my parents a couple of years ago Mr T was just starting to use individual words. He had aninclination to create his own names for certain things, the most memorable of which was ‘abudah’ for ‘car’. Unfortunately, that word has now been replaced by the more conventional ‘car’ or ‘carro’, but there is one word from that time that has stuck around and, I daresay, is likely to be with us for a while yet.

We were in Ireland walking down a country lane from our hotel to the town of Athenry when Mr T started shouting what sounded like ‘dodo’. The pronunciation was remarkable similar to the long extinct animal, except there was more stress on the second syllable.

It was quite obvious that Mr T wasn’t referring to a stupid bird that was a great meal for sailors in the 17^th century, but we had no idea what he was actually talking about. After a few seconds, and an increase in decibels, it became clear that Mr T was actually trying to get his granddad’s attention.

Ever since that day everyone has referred to my dad as ‘dodo’.

There were lots of theories as to why Mr T should choose have chosen this name. Among them included the fact that ‘dodo’ is similar to the Portuguese word for granddad: ‘vovô’. Personally, I didn’t think this was true because I wasn’t sure Mr T had made the connection between his granddads in Brazil and the UK having the same relationship to him.

Portuguese also provides us with ‘doido’, which is a word similar in meaning to ‘fool’. It’s possible that this was what Mr T had in mind, although it wouldn’t be very flattering to my dad.

It was a source of family discussion, with no answer being possible and so lots of theories could be floated. We had almost decided to just let it go and live with the word when my brother and I stumbled upon another possible answer, or perhaps just a strange linguistic coincidence.

A “strange coincidence” to use a phrase

By which such things are settled nowadays

Lord Byron ‘Don Juan’ Canto vi. Stanza 78

A Curry and a Language Lesson

In the first week of our holiday in the UK before Christmas, we went for a great curry in a place called Kababish in Moseley, Birmingham. After the great meal, my brother and I decided we fancied a few extra beers, and so went to a pub around the corner. We happened to find my cousin and her husband propped up at the bar and so proceeded to have a great evening swapping stories with them.

One story was how Mr T was calling his granddad ‘dodo’. To our surprise, my cousin’s husband thought this was the most natural thing in the world. He was originally born on the Isles of Arran, just off the coast of Galway in the west of Ireland. In that part of the world Gaelic is still used as much as, if not more than, English. And it turns out that the word for ‘granddad’ in Gaelic is ‘daideo’ which sounds suspiciously like ‘dodo’.

Now, we were in Ireland when Mr T started using this word. However, none of my family speaks any Gaelic so he wouldn’t have heard the word from them. There is a slight possibility that he heard somebody else use the word, but would he have associated it with a name for his own granddad? Unlikely. Maybe it was just the Irish air or the Galtee sausages?

Linguistic Coincidence

A linguistic coincidence is occurs when two languages have the same word, or sound, for the same thing. Of course, many languages are related, so often it isn’t a coincidence at all. For example, the English word ‘excellent’ is similar to the Portuguese word ‘excelente‘, but this isn’t because of any coincidence, but because both words share a common Latin root. By some estimates, there are over 3, 000 words which are remarkably similar in English and Portuguese, and you can find a list of some of them here.

Instead, a linguistic coincidence is when two languages have the same, or similar word but there is no connection between them. There is an amazing list of linguistic coincidences on Johanna Hypatia’s blog. Looking at this list I was firstly amazed at how many coincidences there are. But thinking about it again, for al the words that exist in all the languages in the world, statistically speaking there has to be some overlap between languages.

And so that is where I think our ‘dodo’ or ‘daideo‘ comes from. It is purely a linguistic coincidence that we will be marvelling over every time we get together as a family and can think of nothing else to talk about. All I have to decide now is how to spell it.

Images used in this text are my own except The Shamrock by Ole Olson CC-BY-NC 2.0 and Language Diversity by Tobias Mikleson CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0

A Bilingual Child: A Mouth Story Before Bedtime

A long, long time ago…

We have had a slight change to our bedtime routine recently. Ever since Mr. T was a few months old we would give him something to eat, then a bath and finally a bedtime story before it was lights out and hopefully quickly to sleep.

It didn’t take him long to cotton on to the fact that both his mamãe and I, and indeed, all of his grandparents, are suckers for reading bedtime stories. This meant he would often ask for just one more story and, depending on how tired we were, or how desperate for a glass of wine, he usually got at least 3 stories a night.

Recently, though, this story routine has changed. He now asks for only two stories, one of which is a ‘mouth story’ and the other being an ‘eye story’.

What do you mean you don’t know what a mouth story is? And you’ve never heard of an eye story?

With the simple logic of a three-year-old it is obvious that a mouth story is one which you make up as you tell it, while an eye story is read from a book. You see? Blindingly clear, isn’t it?

If there is more than one person around then he usually wants the stories from two different people. I am usually the one to give him a mouth story, and either his mamãe or vovó reads an eye story. This has the added advantage of him hearing both English and Portuguese before going to sleep.

One more vital element of a mouth story, besides it being made up on the spot, is that it has to be about Mr. T. We have a clearly developed structure now, so that I start off by saying something like

Tonight I am going to tell you the story of the time Mr. T went to the Fire Station. A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, lived a little boy called Mr Tin Curitiba, Brazil…

Most of these mouth stories are based on real things that happened to Mr T at some point in the past. I think this helps him to develop his memory as he recalls aspects of the stories. However, we are firm believers in never letting the truth stand in the way of a good story, and so we are both happy to embellish certain parts of the stories as and when we see fit.

So our bedtime routine has evolved a bit, but we are all very happy about it and, so far at least, it hasn’t resulted in Mr T trying to stay up any later.

Images: Sleepy v Bedtime Bear by JD Hancock – CC BY 2.0 and Bedtime in Inverness by Gene Selkov – CC BY 2.0

World Cup 2014: Brazil Is Still Here

Brazil fans after losing to Germany 7-1 in the World Cup

After the game

Shame! Embarrassment! Humiliation! Scandal! Ignominy!

Words such as these were bandied about on Tuesday evening. There were tears from more than one person. A few arguments broke out. Some wondered out loud if they would be able to go to work the next day. Others swore the would never leave Brazil again so they wouldn’t have to face the rest of the world.

A couple of people predicted trouble. There were going to be riots. The country was going to rise up. Everything would stop working. The world was going to end.

It is true that a few people didn’t make it in to work the following day, but that was more down to the effects off too much bad beer than feelings of shame. Apart from a few isolated incidents, there wasn’t much trouble, the country has risen up (much to the chagrin of people who should know better) and the world hasn’t ended.

Most Brazilians I know have reacted to the 7-1 loss to Germany in the World Cup semi-final just as I would have predicted, if ever I though such a result were possible. They have shouted at the TV, cursed Galvão (if they still watch him), cried a bit, opened a beer, cracked a few self-deprecating jokes and got on with it.

One very interesting thing for me was the speed with which jokes and memes hit the internet. Midway through the 2nd half I was seeing some great stuff on Facebook, and most of it was by Brazilians. This shouldn’t have been too surprising Brazil is a very connected country, but the speed with which they accepted the inevitable and then started joking about it was impressive.

In newspapers and on TV there is talk of conspiracies and recriminations in the Senate. But most people I have met have talked about it a bit, and then got on with whatever it is they needed to do.

There does seem to be a bit of a divorce between what the media are talking about and what Brazilians I know are talking about. This was evident right from the start of the World Cup. Hardly anybody I spoke to really expected Brazil to win. There was hope, but no expectation. There was a realisation that this team was far from a vintage one and that there were other stronger teams in the world. A few suggested that simply by being at home they would have an advantage that might see them win, but this was never going to be anything to build all your hopes on.

And so now most eyes are turned to the final on Sunday. Nobody really cares about Saturday’s 3rd/4th place play-off, and most people seem to think it is a waste of time and should never be played. The only thing that could really upset people now is if Argentina win in Rio de Janeiro, but even that, I think, wouldn’t be the end of the world.

This blog piece is a part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs series on World Cup for Kids. If you would like to follow the World Cup from the point of view of kids around the world then please go and check out the site. There are bloggers from all of the competing countries as well as articles about Brasil and how to get kids interested in sport.

World Cup 2014: Brazil, Football and Music.

A football and a guitar: Brazilian songs about football

Footy and Music by agthom – CC BY-NC-2.0

Right back at the beginning of the Word Cup, and the start of my series of posts for MKB World Cup for Kids, I asked people what Brazil was famous for, with the idea that I could write some posts based on these ideas.

One person, on Facebook I think, rightfully mentioned that Brazil is famous for samba but that there is also a lot of other music that Brazil doesn’t get recognition for. There are great jazz musicians, heavy metal artists, funk singers and DJs that all come from Brazil. There are also a lot of crap sertanejo, pagode and axé musicians around, but then every country has its fair share of shame in the music stakes.

But as this is the World Cup I thought I’d share some of the music from Brazil about, or inspired by football. I don’t make any claim to all of them being on my playlist, but I have culled a lot of songs that I think are awful. If you would like to find out about more songs from Brazilian artists about football you can do a Google search for musica brasileiro futebol.

Jorge Ben Jor – Fio Maravilha

This song is about a footballer whose nickname was Fio Maravilha. It tells the story of a friendly game in which he was brought onto the pitch in the 33rd minute and scored ‘the goal of an angel’. Due to legal problem between the singer and the player you’ll often see the song called Filho Maravilha, which would be translated as ‘Wonderful Son’. This particular version also features the brilliant Gilberto Gil.

Skank – É Um Partido do Futebol (It’s a Football Match)

Skank are a rock/reggae/indie band that started in the early 1990’s. Despite being very successful in Brazil they haven’t really sought international recognition, which surely would have been theirs if they had tried.

Elis Regina – Aqui É O Pais do Futebol (The Football Country Is Here)

I love Elis! I think she has to be one of my top two favourite Brazilian musicians. She sang some great political songs during the dictatorship and managed to get away with it. I like to think this was because of her voice, but it was probably because the authorities were too stupid to figure out what she was actually singing about. This isn’t one of her best, but it’s still pretty good.

Pixinguinha – Um a Zero (One Nil)

Pixinguinha was one of the first popular Brazilian musicians. He started playing in bands and recording songs when he was still a teenager in the early 20th century in Lapa, Rio de Janeiro. He is credited with bringing choro to the Brazilian masses as well as being around for the birth of samba.

Chico Buarque – O Futebol (Football)

Along with Elis Regina, Chico Buarque is probably my other favourite Brazilian musician. If you have never heard of him, them shame on you. For this particular song I chose a video with images of Garrincha, the Brazilian footballer who was probably better than Pele, and definitely loved more than the Viagra-selling-wannabe-politician.

Edu Krieger – Desculpe, Neymar (Sorry, Neymar)

No, this isn~t a lament for Brazil’s star player breaking his back. Instead, this song is a letter to Neymar telling him that the author will not be supporting Brazil at this World Cup because of the corruption, huge budgets and the problems facing Brazilian society.

Bonus track – Atlético’s Fanáticos drummers

Practically every team in Brazil has its band of drummers and my team, Atlético Paranaense, is no different. The organised supporters group for Atlético is called The Fanáticos, and they have come in for some criticism for links to hooligans and crime. They have a decent set of drummers, though.

I have left loads of songs off this list. If you know of any in particular that you think are better than the ones I have mentioned, please just leave a comment below.

MKB One World Futbol World Cup Giveaway

Football Giveaway

As a kid, I played football with anything: stones, empty drinks cans, rolled up socks, space-hoppers and cricket balls. I was football crazy, so I didn’t really care how much a cricket ball would hurt my foot, I just wanted to kick it.

While kids will kick anything in an effort to play the beautiful game, there is nothing better than playing with a real football. The problem is, though, that they can be very expensive and tend to deflate very quickly when you shank one into next door’s window.

That hissing sound of air escaping from a ball has to be one of the nightmare sounds from my childhood.

That’s why I am so excited to support One World Futbol in their mission to bring the healing power of play to youth worldwide through their nearly indestructible soccer/football. The One World Futbol never needs a pump and never goes flat—even when punctured multiple times—due to its ingenious technology. But what we truly love about their model is for every ball purchased, they donate one to organizations working with youth in disadvantaged communities worldwide.

Our Giveaway

Follow along by using the hash tag #MKBWorldCup!

We have a special giveaway planned during the World Cup with Multicultural Kid Blogs and One World Futbol. It’s unlike a usual giveaway as this time you, our readers, are using your collective power to vote to give the ball away to a community in need! We need your help so we can donate one of the One World Futbols (generously supplied by One World Futbol) to the Richard Swanson – Breakaway Brazil campaign. Richard Swanson had a dream of dribbling a football all the way from Seattle in the USA to Brazil for the World Cup, but unfortunately his dream was cut short when he was hit and killed in Oregon just two weeks into his journey.

But here’s the thing–there are 9 blogs participating in this contest, and One World Futbol will donate balls to the three blogs that get the most shares on their posts. So we need your help–please SHARE this post on Twitter, Facebook, G+ and Pinterest and contribute your power, your vote to help us donate this One World Futbol. Each share make directly from this post is tallied as a vote. And whoever get the most votes, donates the ball! Let’s show how strong our voices are with our votes.

We have until midnight ET on Sunday, July 13, to get as many shares as we can on this post. (The tally will be made based on the number on the social share buttons at the end of this post). So let’s start now!

Feel free to use #MKBWorldCup when you share!

And don’t forget to visit Multicultural Kid Blogs to help them “unlock” an additional two One World Futbols to donate!

One World Futbol

One World Futbol Project is a B-corporation based in Berkeley, CA and was founded by Tim Jahnigen, the inventor of the One World Futbol. One World Futbol was inspired by refugee youth in Darfur, who had such indestructible spirits – and love for football! – despite their hardships. Tim Jahnigen wanted to give them something more, so he invented a soccer ball that would never need a pump and would never go flat, even when punctured multiple times. One World Futbol Project and its virtually indestructible ball have now reached 160 countries and continue to bring the healing power of play to youth worldwide. The Buy One Donate One model makes it easy for consumers to donate these amazing One World Futbols to needy communities.
Here is more on their work in one community in my city of Curitiba in Brazil:

Participating Blogs

The following member blogs are participating in this contest. Visit them to see which organizations they have chosen. Remember, sharing is caring! The 3 blogs with the most social shares (as shown on the share counters on their blog posts) will get to donate a football to the qualified organization they have chosen!

Our Whole Village
Expat Life with a Double Buggy
Entre Compras y El Hogar
Head of the Heard
InCultureParent
MommyMaestra
La Cité des Vents
Trilingual Mama
All Done Monkey

Help “unlock” an additional two One World Futbols at Multicultural Kid Blogs!

See all of the posts in the World Cup for Kids project, plus follow our World Cup for Kids board on Pinterest, and join the conversation on Facebook and Google Plus!

World Cup 2014: Anyone But England

Worn by an Irishman in Brazil for the World Cup

Who are you supporting in the World Cup? For some, this is an easy question to answer because you support the country you come from. If you come from the likes of Holland, Germany, Brazil, or Argentina you rarely, if ever, fail to qualify.

As an Englishman, I have experience of not qualifying. The 1994 World Cup in the USA took place without any country from the British Isles. Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry too much about who to support as Ireland, the home of my dad and all my grandparents, had qualified.

It is one of my favourite World Cups because I didn’t need to obsess about form, injuries and referee decisions. There was also Paul McGrath repelling everything Italy could throw at Ireland and that Ray Houghton goal, and gambol, that got even my granny jumping around the room.

But for others, there is always the need to find a country to support.

Some people decide on a country because of geographical, familial or cultural ties. My dad, for instance, will always support England so long as Ireland are not involved. This is also true for pretty much all of my Irish relatives who live in England.

Some people decide to follow a team based on one or two individuals. I have a friend from New Zealand who loves Cristiano Ronaldo and so is supporting Portugal.

Others choose a team based on their style of play, so the likes of Holland attract a lot of fans.

If Brazil should ever fail to qualify for a tournament, then my wife will probably decide to support a team based on which one has the most good-looking players. This time around, it would be Spain, apparently.

These are all good, positive ways of choosing a country to support. But there is also a negative way of choosing, based on a country that, for whatever reason, you hate.

Some people choose not to support England on this basis, and it even has its own name: Anyone But England (ABE). A few years ago Andy Murray, the Wimbledon tennis champion, got into a lot of trouble when he suggested he would support anyone but England.

Sometimes, and I think this was the case with Andy Murray, it is just a bit of friendly banter between rivals. At other times it is seen as a way to get back at English arrogance and dominance. Then there is also the matter of history and how the English acted and behaved towards their Celtic neighbours.

This ABE idea is not just related to football. In rugby everyone wants to beat England and ups their game against us. And it is also not confined to the Celtic countries around England. Many Australians would also be very comfortable with the supporting anyone else at all.

Image that shows the result of a poll in Scotland to fond out who they are going to support in the WOrld CUp 2014

Who are you planning to support?

While we hear a lot about the ABE campaign, the fact is that it is just a minority of people. A lot of Irish, Scots and Welsh do choose to support England. A recent Mori poll carried out in Scotland showed that 20% of the population planned to support England, while only 5% claimed to be supporting ABE.

Maybe one day Scotland will qualify for the World Cup and I can join an ‘Anyone But Scotland’ campaign. But to be honest, I don’t think Scotland are going to qualify soon and anyway, I’d much rather support Brazil. I might stand a chance of actually winning something, then.