Monday, November 19, 2012

quicko: the gift of who?

So I have actually mentioned this before, but it's come up again (in the third edition of New Headway Elementary this time ...) that Australians don't know the story of "The Gift of the Magi."  Now I recognize that many Americans also don't know of it (though a fair few who don't know the title I suspect would recognize the story), but the thing is it's the literary Australians (such as other ESL teachers) who I would have expected to have been versed in such classics who aren't familiar with it.  Go figure!

1 comment:

Mom said...

I'm guessing they may be unfamiliar with it because it is by O'Henry, an American author. Even though it is a classic for us, Australians are probably more familiar with English literature than American. Just a hunch.