Word Power

Hank soaks up all kinds of words and then peppers his conversation with them. Sometimes he is not even in the ballpark of their actual meaning.

Today, walking in to see Pretty Neighbor and me working out in her basement, Hank goes, "Mom, you are looking really predictable." Only he pronounces it pwuh-dictable. He said it a few more times, with great relish, but I was huffing and puffing and could not stop and unravel his meaning.

But sometimes he nails it. A moment later, PN and I began doing the part of the Jillian Michaels workout where you do "fast feet," up on your toes like a football player. Hank, joining in, goes, "Well this is ex-scwushiating!"

I had to concur.

Tonight, at bedtime, we were talking over his imminent pre-k graduation and all the things that his classmates want to do with their lives. I said, "Remember last year at graduation, the little boy said he wanted to grow up and be Batman?"

Hank laughed, and then, embarrassed for the naïveté of his preschool colleague, said, "Well that's not even plausible."

I said, "Hank, what does plausible mean?" He said, "Batman is science fiction." Then he looked at me like, duh mom, and goes, "That means it's never gonna happen."

I started to suggest that maybe the little boy wanted to take his idea of Batman and make it real and Hank was all, that wouldn't BE BATMAN, and I was like, okay, you have a point. Now stop talking and go to sleep.

....

Words, man. Any good vocab got you excited lately? I was reading something in the last few days where a person was described as "raddled," and it was such an old word and one I see so rarely that I had to stop and enjoy it for a while. Raddled. Not rattled. Just the right word, you know? The right word is a balm to a weary soul.

I'd Take That Bargain

I had a nice exchange with my sis-in-law as she was passing through town on Friday.

I died. Then I texted her, "I just died."

Speaking of technology, and of my brother and sister-in-law, AND of things that practically lay me in my grave:

Not long ago, Dave mentioned on the facebook that he and Katie had spent a whole year with a laptop keyboard on which the 'p' and 'n' keys didn't work, but they had finally taken it to the Apple store, where it was fixed quickly and for free. I realized I faintly remembered this problem from when we visited them in DC in April, that their 'p' and 'n' keys didn't work. And this is their only computer, mind you.

Fjords! I mean, I can't even, it's too much.

Then he went on to say that when he needed a 'p,' either lower- or upper-case, he would google "Obama" because that would get him "President." Then I was like ARGLE BARGLE and I blacked out.

Blacked out with delight.

We are such tool-using monkeys.

Someone PLEASE devise an alphabet primer composed of the best google search for seeking out each letter, from A-Z, keeping in mind that the search terms cannot contain the broken letter. Please do that. Where are we on that?

You Mean, Like, Fudge?

One day before Thanksgiving, I pulled up in the preschool car line to get Hank. His teacher helped him into the car. Then she said, "Becky, I told Hank I would speak to you about this when it happened the third time. Hank has been using potty words."

I said, "Oh, he has?" I was Very Serious.

She said, "Yes, today he said the f-word."

I don't know what my face looked like, but I went, "He said WHAT?"

She hastened to reassure me. "No, no, not that one, the other f-word."

The other f-word?

???

I'm sure I looked as blank as a cloudless winter sky. She was very solemn. I waited. Then she explained, "The word for passing gas."

Oh, FART. Hank said fart.

You know, fart. The "f-word."

I just don't even. I began laughing and have never stopped. I laugh in my sleep and even while eating.

But what I said was, "Oh, got it. Okay, thank you Miss L, we will talk about it."

Hank was sinking further and further into his seat while this conference took place. On the way home I talked to him about controlling his words, that he knows the right way to talk and he has better manners than that, that when he acts rude, it is embarrassing to both of us, etc.

The thing is, right after she said, "Hank said the f-word," I thought that it was perfectly possible he had finally said "fuck" in his classroom. He's never said that at home, but he has certainly heard this word in his lifetime. And we all enjoy that CeeLo Green song. I finally had to download the bowdlerized version because the kids liked the song so much and always wanted to sing it. I have long held the position that I don't really care what words are in songs the kids like, they're just words, we need not act like they have magic evil-summoning powers. But I also don't want to have many car-side conferences about my children's vocabulary.

(Fart is a really crude word. I would secretly rather he'd said fuck. At least that word has a tradition.)

Hank and I agreed that this unpleasantness would remain between the two of us. But of course when he wasn't around, I told Matt. We enjoyed the incident even more in the telling of it. Matt was like, "But her calling that the 'f-word' is the most adorable thing that has ever happened!" I was surprised he didn't get in the car, drive back to the school, and hug her neck. I mean, honestly.

Let's watch our language out there.

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power

At the fifth grade curriculum night last night, Matt met Laura's English/Language Arts teacher and heard about this vocabulary program they do--you probably have it in your school--where the kids learn Latin (and later Greek) word stems, prefixes, and suffixes, and build up a healthy reading vocab from that.

As a little illustration of her goals, the teacher gave Matt a list of 100 Classic Words that are said to let students "read comfortably" in classic lit. Go take a look and see what you think.

When I got home from my meeting and we sat down to swap info, Matt mentioned the list and said, "There were two words on the list that I wasn't quite sure about."

Reader, my interest was piqued. Positively piqued.

(Sidebar: Matt insisted, "Okay later when you blog this, you have to find a way to tell them that, when I said I didn't know two of the words, your eyes shone." It may be true. My intense interest in this vocabulary issue may have been communicated through my eyes. As they are the window to the soul. And my soul was on fire to know what words Matt didn't know, so I could see if I knew them, not out of a desire to one-up him, but because this is where I live, where we both live. When he brandished that list, it was like, oh let us commence to play.)

Then he handed me the list and my eyes immediately went to a little '?' he had drawn next to "verdure." This made me, I admit, begin to smile involuntarily, because I knew what verdure meant. I knew I knew! And Matt, seeing this involuntary twitching of my lips, was like, "Oh you are so happy right now!" And I was! Then he said, "Well, I suppose it means greenery," and I was like, yes. Go Latin!

Then he said the other word he wasn't sure of was "fain." We agreed that this is a tricky one, as it is truly, truly archaic. You will read it in old books, but you will never hear a living person say it. He said he had a sense of it though, and thought it meant reluctant. It means the opposite of that, "willing, glad, or eager," which I only knew from reading old stuff. The only example I could think to quote him was from one of John Donne's sonnets, where the narrator says (addressing God), "Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, but am betrothed unto your enemy." That was in the seventeenth century, and I think "fain" was on the way out then. I would look in the OED but that is so many buttons to press.

That is a really hot poem, now that I think of it.

Anyway, of the whole list, I thought "fain" was the least likely to be in the reading vocab of even an educated reader. What do you think?

Funny, when I looked at the list, I got tripped up by "tremulous." Which is way more familiar, right? I mean, I would have said that it meant "fearful," but when I come upon a word like that, it crowds into my mind with so many of its synonyms and cousins--timid, timorous, trembling, trepidatious--that I start to think I might not know exactly what it means, that I might have it confused with something else. It's a word I would avoid for that reason, I just don't feel totally confident of it.

Then we were just tucking in to a juicy discussion of "sublime" in all its different senses in aesthetics, philosophy, and critical theory, and then a phone rang and also the dog needed to be let out, and I forgot the no-doubt crucial point about Edmund Burke I was making. Just as well.

So I guess there is no great punchline to this story. I just know y'all like words, right? And this is a thing that happened in my house. Also, I am blogging every day.

Love,
me

I Guess It Would Depend on How Much They'd Had To Drink

Like a lot of preschool-age kids, Hank substitutes the /w/ sound for /r/ in many words.  So he says:

fwog
pawade
Wichard Scawwy book

And my favorite, a spell in the Harry Potter game:

"Weducto!" 

I'm not in the least worried about it, as I know that kids can take until age 7 or so to get their articulations sorted out. This website says that a four year-old should be "100% intelligible even if they continue to have articulation errors," and he is, so no big.  Laura had the /f/ and /th/ substitution into Kindergarten, I think.

But I don't even correct him.  I relish it when he says, "Not a pwoblem," or "Wock n' woll, baby!" I mourn for the early childhood speech patterns as they go away.  Do you feel that way?  I remember this with Laura too.  I think that my interest in words combines with my sentimental streak to get me kind of fixated on my children's language use.  I track their assimilation into adult patterns of speech with the mingled fascination and regret of an anthropologist watching a lost Amazonian tribe as they put on Reeboks and take up smoking. 

I have actually shushed people for correcting the kids.  I never want Hank to figure out that the grocery store is not called "Plublix."

So the other day Hank called out to me, "Hey Mom, could a team of winos bash down a wall?"  That made me pause, confused.  It wasn't so much the idea of winos suddenly turning violent that was confusing, it was the idea that they would get organized into a team or stay together long enough to accomplish such a difficult feat.

Then I realized he was watching the old cartoon movie of Robin Hood. In which the king's guards are rhinos.  Rhinos, ah.  Yes, they could do it I think.  Winos, probably not.

I am mourning the passing of this stage of his development even while it's right here in front of me.

FRI-dee

Growing up in Pensacola, Florida, that's how I and everyone around me pronounced "Friday." Sundee, Mundy, Tuesdee, Winnzdee, Thursdy, Fridee, Sat-ur-day-uh.  The days of the week. Although I guess some people say Satterdee.  Sounds great to me.

I also pronounced Florida "Flarda."  I guess I still do when my guard is down.

All this is to say that I hope you're havin' a nice Fridee.

I had my last radiation treatment today. A-W-S-O-M-E-B-A-L-L-S.

I started celebrating yesterdee.  I happened to be going down there alone, so I sat in the coffee shop eating grits and reading Catching Fire on my iPhone.  Then after treatment, I got a pedicure before I had to pick up Hank.

The polish I picked was OPI's London Bridge is Falling Brown. It's a little brown.  But the lady who did the pedi was the one with the really strong hands, and I swear to you, she pushes on this place on the bottom of my right foot and it is the only lesbian experience I have ever had.

Then, today, Matt drove me down there.  The therapists gave me a little dove pin and thanked me for letting them take care of me. Sweet.  Then we just came home and Pretty Neighbor had brought me some balloons and a loaf of banana bread. Double sweet.

And I am not finished celebrating.  I can't decide if we're talking a champagne thing or more a Fudgie the Whale thing.  Or both?

Just now I was lying on my dining room bench admiring my Halloween decorations.  Ooh, at the grocery store today they had buy-two-get-one-free pumpkins, and the only ones they had left were kinda scratch-and-dent. But I am going to spray paint those babies. Oh yes I am.

This brings you entirely up to date.  Now the kids are upstairs having their nightly wrestle with Matt and I have a glass of chianti.  I am sure that there's a "House Hunters" waiting for me to watch it.

Hot, hot, hot action.  You?

Hank Raises An Objection

Last week I was trying to get everyone ready to leave town for my cousin's wedding.  I asked Hank to come try on his khakis, as he hadn't worn them in months, because he likes to keep it casual.

He ran across the living room and hurled himself face-first onto the couch, whined into the cushions, then slid down onto the floor like a boneless chicken cutlet.  I said, "Dude! What's wrong?"

He said, "I don't want to go to that wedding."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because it's too dignicating."

"It's too what?" I asked.

 He repeated, "Because it's too dignicating."

(I'm just spelling the word the way it sounded when he said it.  I am not sure if that's how it's correctly spelled in his Hank lexicon.)

I said, "What is dignicating?"

He said, "It is something that you don't wanna do."  Then he sighed.

The thing is, if I were a kid, I'd be exasperated with parents too, because we ask questions for which we already know the answers.  I knew exactly what "dignicating" meant the first time he said it: it obviously means a situation that imposes a state of unwanted dignity and correctness in dress, behavior, or decorum.  The etymology of his coinage was perfectly clear, like Sarah Palin's "refudiate."  Yet I wouldn't have guessed that Hank knew or even half knew "dignified" or "dignity."  But I guess he does?

Watching kids acquire language is my second favorite part of this parenting biz.  My most favorite part is eating the leftover mac and cheese off their plates.

I coaxed him into the khakis, which still fit.  And he went to the church nursery with his cousins during the ceremony, where I trust he was not overly dignicated.  He did sit nicely through the rehearsal dinner the night before.  He sat there like a dream through people making toasts, quietly dignicating some dessert.



Here are a few more snaps from the wedding weekend I wanted to share.  I go out of town for two days and you have to hear about it all week.  I know!



Here Matt is sporting Laura's feather hair barrette, which she'd tired of and clipped to his shirt. I told him he looked like he'd been decorated by a really awesome chivalric order.

Me with my dad, known to blog readers as Camp Papa. 

Debbie, my very own mom.

My date.

Kate, adorable sister-in-law.

Shorties got low.

Color scheme was apple green and pink. Preppy!

If you have scrolled through these wedding posts and now feel that you know my family enough to want to see more pics of us hanging out in my mother's kitchen, and also a rainbow I photographed, click here.

I hope you are having a good week with little dignication.

Mittens and Pronunciation

Laura and Hank are about to take the dog out for a walk (never mind the fact that the dog still hasn't gotten up for the day, they are hellbent on it and are coaxing her out from under my bed) and Hank walked into the sun room with a mitten on his hand.

He said, "I'm going to wear this mitten outside." I started with, "Baby it's too hot for that mitten . . ." but then I stopped and backed up because he had pronounced "mitten" with a distinct "t" before the second syllable, like mih-ten, instead of the more natural (and correct) mitt'n, with the second syllable nearly unvoiced. Say it both ways and you'll hear what I mean.

So naturally I spanked him.

No. But it caught my attention, so I said, "What is that you're wearing on your hand?" Mih-ten. "And what do you call a baby cat?" Kih-ten. Same unnatural and overly precise pronunciation. Where did he get that?

It reminds me of a brief period in my early teens when I took to pronouncing "didn't" and "shouldn't" as did-dent and should-dent. I did this until my parents were like, "Listen to yourself." Youthful rebellion. I think I was laboring under the same impulse for overcorrection and (wrong) hyper precision that has resulted in people saying "interesting" as though it has four syllables. Or pronouncing the "t" in "often."

Oh yes I just went there.

In the time it took me to type the above, Hank tired of walking the dog and showed back up at the front door, giving the doorbell a brisk four rings. He came in and pulled off his mitten and said, "It is like seventy five degrees out there!" I said, "No baby, it's more like a hundred." And he said, "How did it get so sunny from the space?"

How indeed.

Trouble in Paradise

Gretchen's post, "I Need A Little Backup Here," prompted me to share this story of spousal conflict.

It started after Matt put the kids to bed last night while I made a mama-time trip to TJ Maxx and SuperTarget. I know, we take our thrills where we can. At TJ's I had the satisfaction of finding and carrying away the Best Thing There. It is a Velvet brand tie-front cardigan/shrug thing. Kind of a ballerina sweater, only in black jersey knit. You know, where it only covers your rib cage and makes a big tie in the front? And it was $20 on clearance. I love that brand, and I never see it at TJ's. And on clearance! What is the matter with you people who live around here? So I came home feeling that I had slain the buffalo in the primeval hunt.

When I got in, Matt said, "Uh oh, Hank has finally figured out that he can get out of bed once we put him down. At ten o'clock, I was at my desk and I heard his little footsteps. He said, 'I sneaked downstairs!' He was very proud of himself."

I said, "Well, I'm just happy that he said 'sneaked' instead of 'snuck!'"

Oh Reader, as soon as the words had left my mouth, I knew that this was the equivalent of tossing a bucket of tasty chum into a shark tank. Not that Matt is a shark, but he strikes like a shark, the most loving and affable shark you could meet.

He said, "Hey, wait a minute. What's wrong with 'snuck'? I say 'snuck.'" I said, "It's wrong. It's not the past tense of 'sneak.' Or it's not WRONG, it's nonstandard." His eyes narrowed. Now I was in it. He is like Mark Twain crossed with a bloodhound when it comes to sniffing out anything hypercorrect or high-falutin'. So, a shark, Mark Twain, and a bloodhound, got it?

He said, "You set up Rock Band while I check on the status of 'snuck.' Then he strode towards the office, and I knew that he was going straight to that godawful Merriam-Webster.com. It's the dictionary he uses because it has a website. I knew that it would be some liberal descriptionist thing that would uphold his defense of snuck. So I boogied into the book room and quickly scanned the shelves for my Bryan Garner Dictionary of Modern American Usage. We met in the office.

He looked triumphant as he gestured to this definition. He read aloud:

"From its earliest appearance in print in the late 19th century as a dialectal and probably uneducated form, the past and past participle snuck has risen to the status of standard and to approximate equality with sneaked. It is most common in the United States and Canada but has also been spotted in British and Australian English."

"Status of standard," he trumpeted. I was ready. I said, "First of all, that is not a prescriptive usage guide, and second, that is total bullshit." (Okay, not a strong rebuttal but I was so irritated.) His eyebrows went up. "'Total bullshit,' that's what you have to say?" So I brandished my Garner:

"Snuck is a nonstandard past tense and past participle of sneak common in American dialectical and informal speech and writing. The standard past form is sneaked."

"See?" I said. "It does not say you are a bad person for saying snuck. It says that it is nonstandard, which is all I am saying, and that if you use snuck you should do so advisedly, ESPECIALLY in writing." Reader, I know you are thinking that this should have put the question to rest. It did not. We embarked on a further exploration of the definition of "standard" as it pertains to spoken and written communication. Here are the highlights:

• He accused me of being no different from an 1890's schoolmarm scolding the young folks for newfangled expressions like okay. I said that was a ridiculous comparison, and also that okay is merely informal, not a non-word like snuck.


• I asked him if he would mark snuck on his students' papers if he taught college composition. He said he would not. And I accused him of educational malpractice.


• We discussed the place on the nonstandard/standard continuum of the expression, "Shorties be sippin' like it's dey birfday."


• I said, "You're just trying to find some way that I'm being a snob!" He insisted that it's just fine with him if I'm a snob but that snuck is most definitely a word and also I am a snob.


• We brought up drug as a nonstandard past form of drag. I said drug and snuck were equivalently wrong in my view, while he thought snuck is far more valid and drug is totally redneck. Interestingly, Garner calls drug a specifically Southern form.


• Dove as a nonstandard past form of dive was also brought up. I suddenly realized that I grew up saying dove, like "I dove in headfirst." I consulted Garner on this, and he only says, "Although dove is fairly common in AmE [American English], dived is the predominant form--and the preferable one." Nowhere in that entry does he use the language of correct/incorrect or standard/nonstandard. Hmm. He doesn't mark that as Southern dialect, but I think it is.


• Matt said that we basically disagree on exactly how nonstandard snuck is. I think it's all the way nonstandard, and he thinks it's "knocking on standard's door." Marital concord was restored.


• We played some Rock Band. I realized that I still know every word to the 1993 Belly hit, "Feed the Tree."

So that was the hot Friday night action at our place. Men, I swear. How can he argue with me when I'm making so much sense?!? Totally infuriating.

Please try not to have too much fun tonight, y'all.

Today's Preoccupations: Things Not to Say

I'd like to make a series of recommendations. Here are some phrases I would like to not hear anymore:

1) “Pops of color,” used in talking about decorating: This scourge started on the proliferating home shows on TLC and those channels. Now it has infected the speech of normal people. Anyone who says this automatically sounds like a twit. Instead, just say, “I like red,” or the color in question. Or just say nothing. If you are actually being interviewed by the editors of House Beautiful, go with “I like red.”

2) A “perfect storm” of anything. It’s not that I think this phrase should only be reserved for talking about the weather. But a simple coincidence is not a perfect storm. This phrase should be kept for a truly extraordinary confluence of circumstances, like circumstances that would result in the drowning of George Clooney and Markie Mark AND that other guy from Boogie Nights. Instead, maybe say “a confluence of circumstances.” And then explain what you mean. Help us make sense of what happened by putting the different aspects of the situation in a narrative. Thanks!

3) “Drill down” on something. In, like, computer-speak or IT, this means to move from general information to specific data, like by moving deeper into the hierarchy of directories on your computer, or by querying a database. But now people use it metaphorically, it seems, to just mean getting more information. It even has a noun, “Here’s what I learned from the drilldown.” Don’t talk this way. It’s jargony. And you sound like one of those bluetooth headset guys who tries to butt in line at the airport.

4) “At the end of the day. . .”: Just never say this. What are you talking about? You’re trying to cue us to the fact that you’re about to deliver a profound summation. It is irritating. Instead, maybe just stick with, “I think. . . .”

5) Fierce: This is done. It may have always been done. But I could see it being funny in about 8 years, so we’ll reconvene then.

6) "24/7": This is tired. And usually inaccurate. But it can be saved! Instead, say, “24/7 like 7/11.” Keep your delivery arch. Then it is funny.

And what I’d like to hear more of:

1) Great Caesar’s Ghost! Or sweet sassy molassy! Or sweet fancy Moses! Or heavens to mergatroid! Try these old timey sayings. Really put some relish into them. These phrases are like the Mrs. Dash of ejaculations (hee hee)! And speaking of ejaculations. . .

2) Really any archaic vocabulary: I cannot get enough of it. If you read a lot of old novels, you probably already sound a little like a nineteenth-century social comedy. But more is even better. If, instead of saying something “makes you sick” or “drives you crazy,” you say that if gives you "the fantods," you have my full attention. And I am delighted.

3) The Eff Word: Yes, the mother of all bad words. I know people always talk about how profanity is overused and loses its impact and we’re all desensitized to it. I disagree. I think the eff word never loses flavor or freshness. The anti-profanity people will sniff, “I think using cursewords is a sign of a limited vocabulary. Can’t you construct a sentence without those words?” Perhaps, but those words are words like all our other words, so why not take ‘em out for a spin? Lighten up, Francis.

4) Fo ‘shizzle, etc: Shizzle everything, I SWEAR. It’s funny. Again, keep your delivery slightly arch and enunciate carefully. Maybe, “For shizzle,” instead of “fo’shizzle.” Once, years ago, my sister had just had her first baby and I was visiting her in Dallas. We were driving around aimlessly with her newborn baby in the back of the car, trying to ward off postpartum cabin fever. We were hoping to maybe see a movie at the neighborhood theatre, but as we drove up, we could see a long line winding out of the building and down the block. We both, without premeditation, said in unison, “Forgizzle!” (Like, “Forget it.”) A new coinage, as far as we knew. And I don’t think we have ever laughed so hard. Maybe you have to be caring for a newborn for it to be funny. But it still makes my eyes crinkle up.

So what do you want to hear less of? Or more of? Unfold, that we may attend.