Where is Papa Slurupson?

[Butterbean]

Considering Mary can barely speak Danish now (as I understand?), not to mention worse back then I'd assume, it's not surprising. As long as the kids are brought up in both languages but it seems yet another attempt for Mary to obfuscate and present herself in a certain way--falsely.

Oh, she can speak Danish, but abhorrently for the tutelage she had and the time she spent in the country!

What go me from the interview is this:


Reporter (Kirsten Balslev): Which language do you speak to your grandchildren here in Denmark?

Professor John Donaldson: A mixture of childhood Danish but a lot of
English and we hope that our English speaking will have a little bit
of influence on the way in which they ultimately talk, but ...

Reporter: And you, Susan?

Susan Moody: I speak very basic Danish to Prince Christian, Princess
Isabella is a bit too small yet, but the young prince does speak quite
a bit of English ... quite a lot of English words ... so every now and
then he says something and you think, "That was English!" but we do
try to speak to him in both, as his parents do .... (turning to
Professor Donaldson) ... what? was that too ...

What exactly is childhood Danish?

And why is he hoping to have influence over the way the children speak, I find that presumptuous. It is for the parents to decide IMO.

[pixiecat]

I don't know what childhood Danish is.  I work in language education for a living, and I've never seen anybody refer to another language in this way.  "Basic" or "Beginning" or even "Simple" are the words that one would use (in English) to describe speaking in a low-level or rudimentary form of the target language. "Childhood Danish" doesn't make sense in English (and I suspect it doesn't make sense in Danish either).

Now we know where Mosh gets her "early baby up" linguistic skills. 

There's nothing wrong with implying that the children would be raised bilingual.  Fred and Jokke themselves were raised to be bilingual. There is something very wrong with lying about it to make oneself try to look better a la Mosh with her "my children will not be raised by nannies" and Donaldson's attempt to claim that the kids are only being raised with the Danish language at home. Like father like daughter.

[PeDe]

As at this time and day and especially with their royal status and education level it is totally normal to raise children bilingually (if you check out e.g. Maria Theresia's daughters who had to learn four or five languages because they were not sure who they would marry) - why would they talk to their grandchild in a language they could not master? Frodo surely grew up bilingually so that would have been so easy to have the kids trilingugal ...

What Pa and his wife have not realized - because their daughter is in a very higher social position than he is now does not entitle him to fame or public interest. Hei s not a royal.

There are a few things very odd about him:
(1) He feels so close to Scotland and promotes it to the last - yet he moved to Australia. Why?
> Nobody knows, but On 31 August 1963, John Donaldson married his first wife, Henrietta Clark Horne (1942–1997), at Port Seton. They emigrated to Tasmania, Australia, in November of that year. Donaldson's parents and his older brother Peter and younger sister Roy also emigrated to Tasmania. His father later worked as a captain for a large maritime trading company. Maybe they thought they could get rich in the new country

(2) Why would he leave three children behind in Australia to settle in a country with a language totally strange to him? Doesn't he have friends/ personal attachments/ hobbies/ social circle in Australia? Very odd.
> Well, I bet he'd hoped that once Mary is married into the RF, he could be a hanger on. And in the beginning it sure looked like that. He got a teaching position at a DK university for a while, he stayed with Mary quite often, and "attended" some royal events. I believe he thought if he learns the Danish language reasonably, he would be in the fold of the RF, doing semi-RF events, and atttend certain meetings, galas, etc. Until his wife started to blab to the press about private M&F things and they were banished to France.

(3) Why would he swap his anonymity to become a D-class prominent person with all the downfalls that brings? More hassle than good.
> Ego, Pride, Narcissism?

my answeris in blue

[Miss Marple]

As at this time and day and especially with their royal status and education level it is totally normal to raise children bilingually (if you check out e.g. Maria Theresia's daughters who had to learn four or five languages because they were not sure who they would marry) - why would they talk to their grandchild in a language they could not master? Frodo surely grew up bilingually so that would have been so easy to have the kids trilingugal ...

What Pa and his wife have not realized - because their daughter is in a very higher social position than he is now does not entitle him to fame or public interest. Hei s not a royal.

There are a few things very odd about him:
(1) He feels so close to Scotland and promotes it to the last - yet he moved to Australia. Why?
> Nobody knows, but On 31 August 1963, John Donaldson married his first wife, Henrietta Clark Horne (1942–1997), at Port Seton. They emigrated to Tasmania, Australia, in November of that year. Donaldson's parents and his older brother Peter and younger sister Roy also emigrated to Tasmania. His father later worked as a captain for a large maritime trading company. Maybe they thought they could get rich in the new country

(2) Why would he leave three children behind in Australia to settle in a country with a language totally strange to him? Doesn't he have friends/ personal attachments/ hobbies/ social circle in Australia? Very odd.
> Well, I bet he'd hoped that once Mary is married into the RF, he could be a hanger on. And in the beginning it sure looked like that. He got a teaching position at a DK university for a while, he stayed with Mary quite often, and "attended" some royal events. I believe he thought if he learns the Danish language reasonably, he would be in the fold of the RF, doing semi-RF events, and atttend certain meetings, galas, etc. Until his wife started to blab to the press about private M&F things and they were banished to France.

(3) Why would he swap his anonymity to become a D-class prominent person with all the downfalls that brings? More hassle than good.
> Ego, Pride, Narcissism?

my answeris in blue

Thanks 

(1) I can totally understand how you can move to another country because it has more options for you. He was retired and it would not have been a problem for him to settle in Scotland again - or even get a house there and keep one in Oz. He presents himself Scottish all the time (well, he is ...) but he never seems to spend any time there.

(2) That is a good explanation ... once it failed, he lost all interest in Mary or the children which tells a lot about him, unless there were other reasons we don't know about.