Zany Zing

[frindle2]

Hello.
The Zanies(family) are masters of outside arts.
They are about to take a subway to head for a big park to attract bigger audience.
Here are some dialogs among them.
Would you please explain the last one(the underlined part) for me?
Does Zany zing mean 'Our passion' or something?
And I wonder what 'And then some' means here, too.
Thank you.

from <The Way Downtown> by Inna Gertsberg------

Transit Passe? - Si!
Didgeridoo? - Oui!
Provisons? - Da!
Props? - Ja!
Zany zing? - And then some!

 

[J&K Tutoring]

You have brought up this story in previous posts. One of the major challenges in teaching English to non-native speakers is finding books at the student's reading level that match their interest level. Mostly, it's impossible, so language learners wind up reading books aimed at native-speaking children younger than themselves. I have purchased several books thinking, 'This is a fun and interesting read. I like this story', only to find that they are too difficult for my students to understand without a lot of explanation in their native language, and so we don't include them in our program- they gather dust on our shelves and wait for an opportunity to pass them along to our (young) native-speaking friends.

The book you keep citing is an example of the kind of book I would reject as being too confusing for non-native speakers. It has idioms and other word play to amuse and engage young native speaking readers. It is quite understandable that it is confusing for you.

It's good that you want to understand what you read, but you must learn to look at books before you buy them (if you can) and recognize books that will be difficult for you to understand and therefore are not suitable. Yes, you want to read books that will challenge you and expand your knowledge of English, and that means reading words you may not already know. Zany and zing are both words that can be found in a dictionary, and one can imagine that any story could be understood by looking up every word, but that's pretty boring, isn't it?

You need to find something else to read.

 

[cameron206]

I am not a teacher, and J&K may have a point about reading different material.

But just in case you are up nights thinking about this:

'Zing' is an attribute that makes something exciting. Sometimes defined as "energy, enthusiasm, or liveliness."
Here, the 'Zany zing' is the "energy, enthusiasm, or liveliness" that the Zany family has. That's what makes them entertaining.

Your example is a series of questions and answers.. like a checklist.
I can rephrase it more clearly here.

Do we have the Transit Passe? - Si!
Do we have the Didgeridoo? - Oui!
Do we have the Provisons? - Da!
Do we have the Props? - Ja!
Do we have the "energy, enthusiasm, or liveliness"? - YES!

All of the answers to the questions here are the word "YES" in different languages.
"And then some" is a way to say "YES", emphatically. It means.. I have the required amount of zing and then some more in addition.