fun things kids say as first class attention grabbers

[Alcock, Katie]

A bit late to this, but I grew up "bilingual" (American mother, British father) and "translated" my mother's speech into British English. I was convinced we ate "chocolate putting" and lived in "Leamington Spot".  I met as an adult a little girl aged about 7 growing up in Scotland with a Canadian mother who asked everyone if they were going to the "wetting".

I also apparently was told once "Behave!" to which I replied "I am being have!".

There are some great snippets of overextension on Annette Karmiloff-Smith's TV series "Baby It's You" with all the fruit in the greengrocer's shop labelled as "apple" I seem to remember, as well as a lovely echo sequence with the football results.  I have the series on ancient video cassette but it looks like it's now available on DVD on Amazon.

We're going through the Great Retreat From Overextension with our 19 month old at the moment; at first everything said "Vov Vov" except for ducks who said "Ack Ack". Now cows say moo, sheep say baa, ducks say Ka Ka, and cats say Yow yow, but horses and non-duck-birds still say Vov Vov. He doesn't have any names for body parts in production yet, but will happily point out his nose or hair correctly, but all other names for body parts get you a point at his nose too.

Katie

From: Denis Donovan <dmdonovan1937 at gmail.com<mailto:dmdonovan1937 at gmail.com>>
Reply-To: "info-childes at googlegroups.com<mailto:info-childes at googlegroups.com>" <info-childes at googlegroups.com<mailto:info-childes at googlegroups.com>>
Date: Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:19
To: "info-childes at googlegroups.com<mailto:info-childes at googlegroups.com>" <info-childes at googlegroups.com<mailto:info-childes at googlegroups.com>>
Subject: Re: fun things kids say as first class attention grabbers

My son is now 41. You may know his two cable TV series 'Foodjammers' on the Food Network (and various others around the world) and 'Invention Nation which ran on Discovery Science a few years ago. His mother is French. I'm American (and he had the very good fortune to be born in Canada when I was in medical school).

A few very brief anecdotes:

During a conversation when Micah was four, I asked him something in English and he replied "Ouipe!"
"What is 'ouipe'" I asked.
"Well, papa," he said. "in English, you can say 'yes' or 'yep', so in French you can say 'oui' or 'ouipe.'"

About the same time, Micah asked me if he could do something and I replied "You bet," meaning "yes, of course."
"I AM NOT!" he replied, indignant. Because we mixed French and English a lot, he had interpreted what I said as a mixed version of 'tu es bête' [you're stupid].

When I taught high school French over 40 years ago, I had my French II class write one-lilne TV ads or announcements. Many were of the "Les forêt feux empêchent les ours" (forest fires prevent bears).


- - -
Denis M. Donovan, M.D., M.Ed., F.A.P.S.
Director, EOCT Institute

Medical Director, 1983 - 2006
The Children's Center for Developmental Psychiatry
St. Petersburg, Florida

P.O Box 47576
St. Petersburg, FL 33743-7576
Phone: 727-641-8905
DenisDonovan at EOCT-Institute.org<mailto:DenisDonovan at EOCT-Institute.org>
dmdonovan1937 at gmail.com<mailto:dmdonovan1937 at gmail.com>


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