color war and midos

Color war teaches kids how to deal with the real world. In real life, not everybody is nice to you, and a lot of people put a lot of effort into causes that have no actual meaning. There’s a lot of teasing, haughtiness, brazenness, and dreading in real life. Do you want your kids to be unprepared?

It doeesn’t seem like the opening post was meant in jest, so I will treat it as serious. Please point out if I am misreading anything. I can actually claim to have a great deal of experience in this matter, having both participated in, and helped arranged, numerous Colour Wars and similar competitions.

Colour War (As it is actually spelt) is at its best, a celebration of all that is good about Summer Camps. It permits an atmosphere of healthy competition to flourish in an enironment that I have never seen lead to to true animosity, or indeed any of the poor middos mentioned above, in significantly increased measures relative to the rest of the summer.

Of course, not everybody will take the competitive nature in the spirit it is intended, but this is not caused by the atmosphere or reality of Colour War, rather that certain people will act in a difficult manner given the oppurtunity, and colour War does not rectify, or exacebrate, this fact of life.

In all my experience, from the youngest Campers terrified (Not in a bad way) by the breakout, to an older camper laughing into my sleeve throughout, I have never seen it engender anything other than good. I mantain that one of the most marvellous things about Summer camps is the ability they have to showcase different campers’ talents. The less athletic types can act, sing, or draw. Those with organizational skills can arrange, and those with writing or compositional skills can come to the fore. And I have seen it time and time again.

Far from fostering animosity, it leads to achdus, both amonngst the teams and between boys of differing ages who otherwise wouldn’t come into contact. It is a fantastic way of channeling energies into a constructive and enjoyable event. And I have never met anybody who dreads Colour War for any of the reasons you have said, and I can confidently say that this is because the issue you have bought up is either minimal or non-existent.

Colour War is a fantastic institution, and I am upset at the presence of two threads over the last two weeks attempting to demean it as a practice, despite its valuable role in creating the best possible experience and atmosphere in our Camps.

And one extra letter gives one extra kid a job, as per my above post.

And one more thing. We created the language, so we use it as we wish.

And even so, those two kids can be occupied for a few moments more, and therefore proportionally feel more important, and as such will feel even happier when their team wins. Which their team will. Because they spelt it right.

Their team won’t win. Because they are not on a team. They are the underpaid assistants who are “breaking out” color war.

In my camp we even competed in Achdus.

I thought the chazzan said Ellul not Adar.

The idea that any one group of people “created” the English language, or that the people currently living in England are the direct heirs of that group, is, in a word, hogwash.

The very concept of the English language is that it, like nearly all other languages, is in a constant state of evolution.

“Colour” is how you have spelt it. We have spelled it color.

Any whining about the origin of the language shows just how irrelevant the English realize themselves to have become.

Pretty soon, you’ll emulate the French, and open an Academy for the Preservation of the Integrity of the English Language.

And we all know just how relevant the French are…

And one more thing. We created the language, so we use it as we wish.

you may have created the language, but we created color war 🙂

To paraphrase a comment I once heard quoted, there is no ‘American’ English and ‘UK’ English. There is just English. And mistakes.

im going to go out on limb here and assume this person was British… but let me ask -along the same lines as my above statement (and the famous source for it)- would calling that box that brings people between floors in a building an “elevator” be considered in your book a “mistake”? 🙂

🙂 Bump 🙂

What was wrong with iBump’s post?

what do you mean by that?

🙂 Bump 🙂

iBump:

A mistake? not necessarily. Needlessly confusing? Probably. You see, we call that little box a ‘lift’, and the magical staircases elevators. Now, feel free to enlighten me as to the corresponding american terminology, but that seems like a pretty good labelling system to me.

OK, I just got a whole post accidentally deleted, which is dispiriting at the best of times. I’ll provide a concise review of my far superior lost post.

My assumption above was incorrect. But also, I think, was yours, iBump. When writing my previous post, I did have a vague recollection of the escalator being an American invention. But I incorrectly forgot there were two similar terms and said, erroneously, that elevator was the term for a moving staircase, and ‘lift’ for what you call an elevator. This was entirely incorrect, and I apologise.

But in the post I was responding to, the assumption seemed to be that the Brits use a different, and wrong, term for an elevator, which, as you correctly point out, is an American invention and was originally called an escelator.

But actually, in terms of real terminology, there is absolutely no difference between the terms used in the UK and the US regarding these two items. We both use ‘escalator’ for a magical staircase, and ‘elevator’ for the box that goes up and down. The only difference is that we have a slang word for an elevator, and call it a ‘lift’. This word doesn’t replace ‘elevator’, merely compliments is. We simply use both terms, except one is colloquial. This is similar to the terms ‘Soccer’ and ‘Football’, both of which are valid words, in the UK, to describe our national sport. Football is simply the official name (Well, stricly speaking, one of the official names, as the full name is ‘Association Football’), and ‘Soccer’ is the slang term for that same sport.

So you haven’t actually pointed out any issues with my linguistic viewpoint, iBump. Perhaps that wasn’t your intention, and I misread your earlier post, or you have other points to make, in which case feel free.

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/british-posters

I am pro color war.

I liked color war as a kid, and I loved it as a staff member.

NeutiquamErro, I assume you meant that the term lift complements the term elevator. I find it hard to believe that one term would want to make another feel good about itself.

Or is that the British spelling?

pro color war

Color war, if done properly, can be an opportunity for kids’ talents to shine. It can also be an opportunity to learn good midos, again, if done properly.

Marbehshalom, you should send your kids to camps where it’s done properly.

Marbehshalom, if you want to know how a colorwar goes smooth, I can tell you of one camp where it all happens. The achdus, learning,sports etc are all done properly. There is no such thing as poking fun or even the slightest action of chutzpah that takes place in this camp. At the finale of colorwar, many are in tears as they share their summer experience during this one evening. Not sure which camping experience you witnessed when you were younger. However, I am a true camp alumni of a popular camp and I always looked forward to colorwar.

As a camp counselor,and camper, i see nothing wrong with colour war. ( i am also upset at my spell check for saying that “colour” is a misspelling) btw, maybe we should make a coffee room colour war, especially since according to some CR posters are genetically wired to enjoy colour war

Marbehsholom either send your kid to a camp that does color war correctly or send your kid to a camp that doesn’t have color war. I do feel bad for you that you missed out on the joys of going to a camp where color war is done correctly but we all miss out on many good experiences and should be happy for those good experiences we did have.