Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for November 19, 2013

It’s a good question.

They merely wish to discern if you fit in a square hole, a round hole, or go straight to the reject bin.

Her accent is improving!

I guess I deserve the same omen: it’s the first time I see the word “glean”…

Come on! How do you expect people to know a word like ‘glean’ if they don’t live on a farm and harvest grain?

What ever you do don’t put any thing on the test about unicorns. Also when in doubt always answer C. you can’t go wrong with C.

Though what I like is when teachers write there own tests. some times they have a seance of hummer or make mistakes, What I hate on tests is when more then one answer is right or when you have to show your work.

Actually, it’s even harder than that. The usual reference is to poor people from the village coming in after the field has been harvested and getting what they can from the leftovers. In an era of hand-reaping and of peasants or serfs working for large landowners, that was an important part of the economy, but with modern harvesting machines and large farms, and all the (more or less) peasants living in the big city, anyway, it’s pretty much vanished in the First World. The only place a modern kid is likely to encounter that sense of the word is in the Book of Ruth, or in the earlier passages of the Bible where the Israelites are specifically told that they mustn’t go back over their fields—whatever they missed the first time belongs to the poor.

But, of course, it’s still found in its metaphorical sense, as Marigold is using it here: to gather up small chunks of something—“something” almost always being information, nowadays.

Someone needs a dictionary for Christmas.

Actually, I gravely doubt that an eight-year-old would understand Marigold’s use of the word, based merely on its occurrences in the KJV.