Our daughters are in their fifties. PB, having taught science to Asian kids, abruptly started teaching them to cook; she also loves horses. OS pursues money launderers with some success and supports a mid-range soccer team. All alien eventualities. Both prefer pop music – so be it. Both read books which pleases us.
Both are articulate, meaning they have wide vocabularies and their sentences – oral and written – have requisite structures. This might have been predicted but I would never take any credit. However I did watch the roots of this skill develop.
The kids liked words. To the point of inventing their own. In dismantling a mechanism I allowed a washer (the nuts-and-bolts related item) to fall to the floor. PB/OS (I am deliberately not separating their identities) said, “Daddy, you’ve lost a MOORIEL.” Out of the blue! From what origin?
Two dozen plastic animals and buildings could be arranged to form a farm. And what was that? I asked pointing to one assembly. “An animal PLUCTUARY.” I was told. Yes, I know kids come up with words, but this word sounded positively adult.
I’m a Beatrix Potter enthusiast and read her books aloud over and over. To stifle my eventual yawns I changed the name of Mr McGregor in Peter Rabbit to Mr McGilligaw. The response: “Daddy, you’re doing your special COMPANITIONS.” Definitely adult.
Parents often say they’re proud of their kids, actually meaning they’re proud of themselves. I prefer to say: my kids delight(ed) me.
* The meat of the above appeared in a post years ago. But in a different context
Your daughters made up wonderful words.
ReplyDeleteColette: It was almost as if they weren't made-up. As if they'd always existed but I hadn't met up with them. "Pluctuary" seemed quite, quite plausible even if its meaning was entirely obscure. Go figure, as Americans say.
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