To think this was a bit tactless of the teacher

[callherwillow]

The teacher in question referred to friends daughter (Year 4) as 'bonny'. I realise that there are areas of the country where this is just a compliment without any other connotations but here it essentially means 'fat.'

The friends DD was a few minutes late due to helping set up the assembly and upon entering had gone to sit with her friends and was stopped by the teacher who tried to steer her to the year 6s and when she politely explained she was in year 4 the teacher commented (in a whole school assembly where the children could all hear her) 'well, you are a very bonny girl for year 4, aren't you?'

Not the teachers finest hour, I don't think?

So I. Some places bonny means chubby?

I'm in the West Midlands and have a friend who has a child named Bonnie - I'm quite that in some parts of the county it would be like naming a child Chubbie!

I think that most people are aware there are multiple meanings and apply the correct one according to context.

It means "well grown or built"
You can have bonnie houses
Plants
Cakes
Tall fat and chubby and pretty cannot be interchanged with this meaning entierly although they could partially depending on the context

Does the teacher come from the area in which she now teaches?

I have always thought of the word as nothing but a compliment (am not Scottish or near Scotland) , useful to know that it may not always be .

If you believe the teacher was calling a child fat then you should be reporting her.

My teacher in P2 evil, violent witch said to my friend one day "My goodness you are FAT girl. Does your mother feed you potato sandwiches every day?".

That shit belongs back in the 70s.

I can't help with the meaning of bonny as I'm Scottish and it's a good thing here.

You are a teacher?

Have you never said anything which someone may take umbrage with?

This thread demonstrates that you cannot know with certainly what the intention of the teacher was in saying that word

In any was, I would argue that some people would be upset at some of what you deem to be acceptable alternatives

My ow view - not ideal to comment on the child's appearance at all (although my reading of bonny is that it's a compliment), but not that big a deal to warrant a thread

In any case

BTW

you can't tell people not to post. Or at least, if you do they can ignore you.

Report or ignore them

I'm from lancs and call my 3yo bonny. It means pretty to me.

I'm in Durham and bonny means healthy, pretty, gorgeous. I've never known it to mean fat. I might have missed it but has the op said where she lives?

I would have assumed that she meant it as big. Because big can mean fat, but big can also mean tall. If she's not local she might think it's a general term for big, so can mean either.

I nearly called a girl in my DSs class big, but thought it might sound wrong, and called her tall (she's y4, nearly as tall as me and towers over my tiny DS!)

Pp: be tempted to have a word with the head

So much teacher bashing on mn. I think schools have more important things to think about than someone saying that a child looked 'big' enough to be in y6. Was the child upset?If not. What's the problem?

Yes, and said so repeatedly.

There are numerous pointless threads.

There are numerous threads in the 'wrong' place.

It's actually quite unpleasant to be repeatedly harangued for posting, not ce cause they disagree with the post but just because they feel it's not something that should have been posted.

It puts you in a defensive position, means you have to justify yourself unfairly and diverts the thread

It's also made a relatively small incident into something bigger. Like I say there is an agenda there.

Op the word "bonny" means healthy and glowing in my little 5 mile stretch of England. So even though I have no idea where you live or even if you live in England too, it definitely has the exact same connotation where you live (yes I do know better than you).

Now stop giving me this nonsense about regional variations in dialect we all know that's nonsense and accept you're being unreasonable please.

Oh and as for posting in the wrong place whilst simultaneously criticising a teacher. Are you some sort of anarchist or something?

Shyposter, what's the other meaning of "tidy?"

I guess my question would have to be, is bonny an insult where you are from OP? For example here solid from your list of synonyms is not an insult chubby and plump are pretty insulting. So is bonny an actual insult? If so then you are being really unreasonable asking if a teacher is being tactless insulting a child. Why would you have to ask? If it is not an insult well then you are not being unreasonable.

Who cares about where the thread was posted? It's been an interesting discussion about dialect and word meaning across Britain as far as I am concerned.

No it is not an insult :) hence my 'tactless' not 'nasty'.

Nouser

Ego I do hope you'll be extending this same analysis to other threads.

'Who cares'

Ego. Very, very much indeed.