A Multigenerational Children’s Dictionary
By S.L. Hazzard
As a mother, I was constantly entertained by the animated personality of my first-born daughter. She was constantly expressing her observations of the world around her, coupled with learning the English language, and combining the two in her unique creation of expressions and phrases. Now, as a grandmother, my grandchildren provide me with the same level of entertainment, with their unique style of communicating how the world looks through their eyes.
My daughter, Sarah, at age 3, was very helpful to her dad, who was handy at fixing things around the house. When he needed the extension cord, Sarah promptly brought him the “electricity rope.”
When Sarah was young, she also loved thunderstorms and had several expressions for things related. An umbrella was a “thunderella,” or an “under-ella.” To her, whenever it would rain, she would say that it was “God crying.”
Sarah always loved to read and we made certain she had a lot of story books. One of her books was a book about animals, which had good photos of many of God’s creatures. I used this book to teach her how to identify the different animals and she would sometimes get them mixed up. She particularly liked the hippopotamus. She also liked the rhinoceros, but often could not remember the name, so she called them “those other ‘potamuses.”
When my daughter and I were shopping in the grocery store, I was casually browsing the meat counter, when Sarah, age 3, ran, excitedly to me with wide eyes, beckoning me, “Mom, you have GOT to come see what I found!” I followed her down the isle of the packaged meats until we reached the destination of her discovery. She stood on her tiptoes, and pointed, with thrill, and exclaimed, “Look Mom, Look! Chocolate Ham!” I glanced to see what she was pointing to and it was a row of packaged calves’ liver!
When my son, John was two years old, we lived on a 200-acre farm in Indiana. That was a lot of space for a boy to explore, and this is where he first discovered the world of insects. While helping me prepare a flowerbed one Spring day, a very large centipede crawled through the soil, to which he exclaimed with excitement, “Look Mom, it’s a “Cinnamon pea!”
Both of my grandsons love all kinds of creatures, including insects. Every year, when the locusts appear from their underground hibernation, the cicadas are always referred to as, “Bo-cadas.”
It is always a treat for the grandchildren when we go to Chick Filet restaurants, as they have an indoor playground. Whenever asked where she would like to go to have lunch, my Granddaughter, Gannon has always insisted on going to “Chick Ole!”
Since Gannon started talking, she always loved polka dots. She has always referred to them as “Pokey Nuts.”
Other definitions invented by my children and grandchildren:
Caterpillar is pronounced, “Callerpitter.”
Pistachio is pronounced, “Caspio.”
The phrase, “One by one” is replaced by “Each by each.”
A pine cone is a “kinda pone.”
Butterflies are “flutterbyes.”
Dandelions were “Dandy-Lands.”
The TV Series known as “Battlestar Galactica” was, instead, “Star-back Galack-tack.”
One of our favorite things to do each year as a family was to go to the “Bluegrass Festival.” We purchased a T-shirt with the advertising of the event printed on the front for my daughter. She referred to it as her “Bluegrass Vegetable” shirt.
