Play it again, Thsam

What's up with my daughter's toys that attempt to "teach" ABCs & 123s and other such life necessities?

More often than not I find that someone desperately needs to teach the toys correct english and pronunciation. It is so very annoying. Granted, I am an Editor by trade and have advanced degrees in English, but give me a break---I sometimes want to throw these toys straight out the window so that my DD won't pick up on some very bad liguistic habits.

For example, lysping seems to be a huge problem. She has this Little Touch LeapPad electronic book (Rainbow Fish) in which the fish has some kind of freaky accent (carrib? jamaican? british? aussie? dude, I have NO idea WHAT it is!) anyway, on every page there's a different number of scales and he pronounces scales as "thskalesth" and every number is said in his freaky accent so that it's really challenging for even an adult to understand, let alone a toddler trying to learn to communicate.

Her fisher price learning chair is equally annoying for different reasons---it "teaches" her words such as "ducky" and "froggy" and tells her that the "kitty goes meow" and the "doggy goes ruff ruff!" (I realize that this usage is so slangish its practically standard, but my grammarian side must protest, even if in vain.) And her Crazy Legs Learning Bugs by vtech is completely unintelligible when you turn it on---"thsort thsort thsort my thskateth?/thsheets? [aka skates? or sheets?], circles hearts and squares, [insert indistiquishible line here], thshapes are everywhere." I mean COME ON! Eddie Vedder is more understandable than this crap. Everytime I hear it I cringe. I don't want my DD to have problems with speaking, but she LOVES these toys.

I know I have the most influence in her speaking practices, so I try and teach her the correct words and such. But...is it just me who's so annoyed? Wait, don't answer that.