Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2004-02-04 01:02 am
azurelunatic) wrote2004-02-04 01:02 am
Little Kid, Big Words
In reading a book about the colors of China to the Little Fayoumis tonight, we came across a picture of a statue of the Buddha. Little Fayoumis asked who that girl was. I said that it was the Buddha, a guy.
Little Fayoumis was surprised, and said that it looked like a girl. I told him that yeah, it was kind of hard to tell if it was a guy or a girl unless you already knew, and that the word for it when you can't tell if it's a guy or a girl is "androgynous".
"He's really androgynous," Little Fayoumis declared, murdering the word, but grasping it utterly.
That really is the way to slip in those nice vocabulary words -- in context, when the kid is clearly searching for the right word that they don't know yet, and are happy when a grown-up tells them a word that fits what they mean exactly. (And it also weirds me that so much of the thinking is done with these words -- they make elaborate constructs possible to store and modify, but unless one's accustomed to being a wordsmith (writer of me?), one can't say anything new compactly.
Little Fayoumis was surprised, and said that it looked like a girl. I told him that yeah, it was kind of hard to tell if it was a guy or a girl unless you already knew, and that the word for it when you can't tell if it's a guy or a girl is "androgynous".
"He's really androgynous," Little Fayoumis declared, murdering the word, but grasping it utterly.
That really is the way to slip in those nice vocabulary words -- in context, when the kid is clearly searching for the right word that they don't know yet, and are happy when a grown-up tells them a word that fits what they mean exactly. (And it also weirds me that so much of the thinking is done with these words -- they make elaborate constructs possible to store and modify, but unless one's accustomed to being a wordsmith (writer of me?), one can't say anything new compactly.
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I'm not usually the one paying closest attention to him when we're out in public, and that's when we'd be meeting the normal adults.
One of his endearing/embarrassing traits is to, when we're at a certain branch of the bank, while I'm conducting my transaction at the stand-up window, sit down at the New Accounts window and tell the slightly bemused teller his current latest and coolest news, including the insistance that all people, no matter if he's never met them before, ought to know his name already, and have clearly carelessly forgotten it.
Last time, he was insisting that he was [full name] Junior, having not quite grasped the refinement that it must be the entire name that's the same, not just the last name.
These days, he's insisting that people call him "Chum".
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He's a bright kid.
Of course, I have no idea if he'll actually remember the word...
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