Having fun with words
| parenting, playI love strewing ideas in front of A+ in case something catches her interest. A rich source of in-jokes is the word "antidisestablishmentarianism", which I introduced to her when she was… what… maybe 3? 4? and which she decided to master with her usual determination. Sometimes, when she's in a "Mom! Mom! Mom!" phase, I joke about changing my preferred name so that she has to say "Antidisestablishmentarianism! Antidisestablishmentarianism! Antidisestablishmentarianism!", which always gets either a laugh or a groan.
One of A+'s friends is a 4-year-old. She was playing the copying game with her, the one where a kid repeats everything the other person says. Whenever A+ wants to wind the game down, she confidently rattles off "antidisestablishmentarianism" and that's the end of that.
I didn't want A+ to rest on her laurels, of course. I introduced another word: paradichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. That piqued A+'s curiosity, so I told her about DDT and I shared the limerick I learned it from.
A mosquito was heard to complain,
"A chemist has poisoned my brain!"
The source of his sorrow
was paradichloro-
diphenyltrichloroethane.
A+ got the hang of the limerick within a few days. Apparently, she's already shared it with her teacher and her nature club counselors. I think she's even been coaching the 4-year-old through saying it syllable by syllable, so perhaps there will be two of these word geeks someday.
Since A+ liked the rhythm of the limerick and she also likes math, I looked up this other fun limerick, which is attributed to Leigh Mercer:
A dozen, a gross, and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.
Small words, but fun to play with too.
For our next steps, I want to get the hang of saying "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" and "hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia" (although sesquipedalophobia is the more common term).
We also pun about whatever she's interested in. At the moment, it's all red panda all the time, thanks to her enjoyment of Turning Red. ("Which animal loves books?" "A well-read panda!") We love alliteration and rhyme. We change the lyrics to her favourite songs. I had a hard time sitting down and playing with A+ when she was smaller, but now we've got so many words to play with. This is fun!
What's the use of these things? Mostly to tickle our brains and make each other smile, but also maybe the tiny chance of bumping into someone else who happens to overhear it and who chuckles out of recognition. There are people out there who like to play the kind of way we like to play, and she'll find her tribe someday.
