kiddie-isms

Children have a way with words that is all their own. I don't mean that they possess a unique eloquence, although that often is the case. What I mean is that they are an engine that drives the creation of new words, both in terms of the new vocabulary we must conjure to describe the phenomena that manifest in their presence, and in terms of the neologisms they create. And there's also the words they mangle.

Back when I was a child and station wagons were all the minivan of the day, we had the back seat and the "back back," where we stowed our luggage, our coats and even ourselves, when the back seat was too crowded for four boys. For a couple years, when Ward and I were really young, our oldest brother was PJ, as B.G., his initials, was too difficult for us to say.

Our children have been full of such contributions to the language. Over the years, Evangeline has created terms like "ots" for house; employed the universal prefix yeah, as in yeah-tree, yeah-car and year-house; and vested words with new meaning like when she expressed her desire for milk by saying "computer lights," since she often nursed in the afternoon while Natasha used the computer.

She also renamed the front room of our house the "rivelling room." I admit that I rather like the sound of it, and hope it sticks.

For her part, Rachel has had a fixation on the letter K. Thus she puts on kajamas before she goes to bed, likes to get kabloons when we go to parties, and enjoys seeing korillas at the zoo.

She's also been most inventive with language at expressing new concepts. Although she didn't coin a phrase like "choo-choo bird" to relate the concept of an airplane, she has invented phrases like "tippy bottom," for the opposite of "tippy-top."

Is there a point to all this? No. But it amuses me, and so I share it with you.