"Groom" (or its rough equivalent) Across Languages

While my college major may have been English with a concentration in Creative Writing, and while I may be a teacher of English (though more specifically, a teacher of argumentative writing), one of my interests has always been picking up other languages.  Growing up, my grandparents on my mother's side spoke French around the house (though usually only to complain about my brother's behavior and my own behavior, or about the condition of our house in terms of cleanliness) and I actually attended a bilingual preschool where the instructor was fluent in both English and French and taught students in both.

Of course, once I got into public school at Farwell Elementary in Lewiston, the opportunity to be bilingual was pretty much gone.  True, my third grade class had a visiting Japanese teacher (Mamiko-sensei, though how I remember that name is a mystery to me) who came in to teach us some fragments of Japanese language and culture sporadically over the year, but there was no foreign language to go with the standards of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Before I get any further, I must warn you that this is going to be a very nerdy and linguistically-focused posting.  If you've no interest in the nuances of language or my propensity to gush about language in general, you might not want to click the link below.  There are some pretty funny and interesting bits to this post though, so those brave enough to proceed will be rewarded.