I'm afraid I am a bit of a pain when it comes to words. I take issue with poor use of the English language and incorrect punctuation - you know, those signs you see with commas in all the wrong places, or the wrong type of 'there' or 'where' used in an email. Gah. It makes me cross.
Anyway, all of this goes totally out of the window when it comes to my children. They have invented some fabulous words of their own and I just can't bring myself to correct them.
For example, among many others, my three-and-a-half year old currently refers to things being 'benear' something (which is a hybrid of 'beside' and 'near') and he has a fabulous word 'impressful' which is, well, for anything really good or - impressful!
I also realised only recently that my five-year-old says 'thuge' for 'huge' and then yesterday he thought I'd told him I'd been to see the 'Food Fighters' at a music festival.
All of which are just so much more brilliant and entertaining than the proper versions - so I don't correct them, for the time being at least, and wonder what other parents do when their children mix words up, or make up new words entirely? Do you correct them - should we correct - or is it OK to enjoy the innocence of childhood while it lasts and tell them, when they are twelve, that there isn't actually such a word as 'benear' which might explain why they didn't do so well in their test at school and - while we're at it - that Santa isn't real.
What do you think?
My son used to call the kitchen the kitchroom. Not only did I not correct him but I started saying it myself. My husband ended up correcting both of us :)
ReplyDeleteI love those treasures. We still call our kitchen the chicken even though our daughter hasn't said it in at least 2 years. My now 33 yr old sister has never lived down calling our sitting room the shitting den.
ReplyDeleteSadly I don't think those hybrid words will make it as far as 12. I say sadly, because I quite like them, and still mourn the passing of 'helo-lo-lok' (for 'helicopter') 2 years down the road...
ReplyDeleteI have a box where I write funny things they say down and chuck the note in.... in years to come we'll have a session round the dinner table to go through them all again. I love their little brains and how they work - often more rational than the reality. I still call the TV the TB, even though the girls have corrected themselves! Let them have their innocence... it's a long time gone.
ReplyDeleteI think you're absolutely right. While I hate to talk "as a linguist," I am one, and all the evidence overwhelmingly shows that what kids need most to learn to speak well is confidence. The mistakes will get ironed out anyway, but they need to feel that using language is fun, and that they can do it.
ReplyDeleteI tend to pick one thing to work at if I really can't help it, and everything else I leave alone. That way, I am never tempted to get critical. (At the moment, my picks are my daughter's rolling "r"s (Dutch ones - she could do with some) and my son's use of much and many. I end up correcting them maybe once a week. Their confidence is sky high.
I too am a pedant, and only this weekend took great delight in photographing a sign at a car rally saying "Cars admit fumes"! Anyway, my Elf makes up some words/phrases, soak and wet, hide and sink, etc. He still says those two! I started correcting him more regularly a few months ago, when his reading started improving in Reception Year. He's receptive to the corrections now. And so am I. -HMx
ReplyDeleteI make sure I have taught my two year old the correct words but sometimes the things she says are too cute to correct. For example she calls a "trampoline" a "bouncerine" which I think is such a cool word. Also she doesn't say "instead" she says "orstead" which when you think about it kind of makes sense.
ReplyDelete# year old grandson upset last weak because his kitty "piss-o-peared" Laughing too hard to correct him
ReplyDeleteMy husband is forever correcting my English. Even though it's his second language. If that helps.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter used to use quite a few funny made-up words. I didn't correct them either and in the end they disappeared. Instead of tay-sion it was television. I remember feeling quite sad about it actually. My mother used to correct my speech all the time. It drove me mad and made me nervous. Not to be recommended I say. Correcting is fine to an extent, but I really do think it's possible to correct too much. x
ReplyDeleteI love reading and listening to all this and it doesn't last for long. In fact I didn't take note of enough of it. Having said that it drives me crazy when my kids use much for more. They don't speak much anyway and what comes out is sooo monosyllabic (except when they do scripts of Malcolm in the Middle)
ReplyDeleteMy pet hate is people who add "-ation" onto the end of a word to form a new one when a perfectly good word already exists. I heard "vandalisation" instead of "vandalism" on the radio today. Oooh, makes me mad!
ReplyDeleteLois calls her nipples her nibbles. We like it too much to correct her.
ReplyDeleteI can't really bear to correct them, though from time to time I do - to save my child's embarrassment at a future date. Some of them live on in family vocabulary though. For example, my oldest (now 14) used to stand at the bottom of the stairs as a toddler and shout up "eh ah loo?" (where are you?), and within the family, we quite often use that. Youngest used to call her tummy button her "bunce", and that has stuck too.
ReplyDeleteWe can correct them when they're at the right age to understand. To avoid confusion, right age at the right time.
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