fun things kids say as first class attention grabbers

Wed Aug 21 15:35:42 UTC 2013

You can also find many examples in my chapter in the Bowerman festschrift
volume.  Here are just a few randomly selected examples, from my daughter
and grandchildren:

Rachel:

 R:  Who’s the marveloust cat in the world?

M:What? [not knowing if there’s a /t/ at end]

[R repeats above 2 times].

M: What?

R:Who’s the best ( marveloust) cat in the world?

[M asks R to say it slowly].

[R says slowly 3 times, last time: ]

R: Who is the mar—ve—lous—t cat in the world? 5;5.17

Sadie:

[Sadie on toilet:] I think I’m gonna use up a gallon of that toilet paper!
4;2.2

Saul:

(36) Saul 4;11.12

S: You have 10 fingers and I have 10.

M: So who has more?

S: You.

M: I have more?

S: Yes, because yours are bigger. I mean just look at them!

Sadie:

V: [on phone to S, near Christmas time] Did you put up a Christmas tree?

S:  No. We put a tree in the house.

3;5.26

Sadie:

S: I so wish we could get that thing out of my butt!

M: The poop?

S: Yeah!

3;1.21

Sadie:

How old I am is S-A-D-I-E. My name is S-A-D-I-E. 3;2.14

Sadie:

[V sent Sadie package full of hair clips at Halloween time. Sadie
mentioning how much fun it was to open up the package:]

It was so much fun. It was 20 fun! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,
14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. It takes a long time to get to 20.  3;4.8

Is everybody as tired as I am? I’m 150 tired…I’m 199 tired. 3;9.22

You’re very lucky. You’re 20 hundred and 750 lucky. 3;9.24

[V and Sadie discussing how Sadie was “lost” at a park one time:]

V: But Sadie wasn’t worried. Not one teensy bit.

S: Not even 2. Not even 3. Not even 4. Not even 5…bit. 3;9.24

For more examples and explanations, see:

Gathercole, Virginia C. Mueller.   2010.  "It was so much fun.  It was
*20*fun!"  Cognitive and linguistic invitations to the development of
scalar
predicates.  In V. C. M. Gathercole (Editor), *Routes to language: Studies
in honor of Melissa Bowerman*.   N.Y.: Psychology Press, Taylor & Francis.
319-443.

V. C. Mueller Gathercole
Professor of Linguistics
Florida International University

http://vcmuellergathercole.weebly.com/index.html

"Always credit the PHOTOGRAPHER."

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 9:47 AM, Elena Nicoladis <elenan at ualberta.ca> wrote:

> My 3.5 French-English bilingual daughter announced one day (in English),
> "I have a spicy bum!"
>
> Took us hours to figure out that she meant that she meant that she had an
> itchy bum (spicy = piquant (Fr); piquer (Fr) = to itch).
>
> Elena
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 7:27 AM, Roberta Golinkoff <Roberta at udel.edu>wrote:
>
>> Great idea! Will you please share when you collect these?
>>
>> My grandchild looked down his mom's shirt at her cleavage and said, "That
>> a butt?" He had a gap that needed filling...
>>
>> Best, Roberta
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 10:44 PM, Bruno <brunilda at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> I like to use attention grabbers the first day of class in my language
>>> acquisition courses. I usually mention the fis phenomenon, McNeill and
>>> Braine on negative evidence, and some fun errors (for example from Erika
>>> Hoff's and Eve Clark's books, with attribution). Students laugh and become
>>> really interested in figuring out why kids say the darnedest things.
>>> I was wondering if somebody can share examples that can be used this way
>>> or if people have some favorite ones they use.
>>> Thanks all.
>>>
>>> Bruno
>>> Bruno Estigarribia
>>> Assistant Professor of Spanish, Department of Romance Languages and
>>> Literatures
>>> Research Assistant Professor of Psychology, Cognitive Science Program
>>> Affiliate Faculty, Global Studies
>>> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph. D.
>> Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Professor
>> School of Education and Departments of Psychology and Linguistics and
>> Cognitive Science
>> University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716
>> Office: 302-831-1634; Fax: 302-831-4110
>> Web page: http://udel.edu/~roberta/
>> Author of "A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool: Presenting the
>> Evidence" (Oxford)
>>     http://www.mandateforplayfullearning.com/
>> Please check out our doctoral program at
>> http://www.udel.edu/education/graduate/index.html
>> The late Mary Dunn said, "Life is the time we have to learn."
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Elena Nicoladis
>
> "Since all the sciences, and especially psychology, are still immersed in
> such tremendous realms of the uncertain and the unknown, the best that any
> individual scientist, especially any psychologist, can do seems to be to
> follow his own gleam and his own bent, however inadequate they may be. In
> fact, I suppose that actually this is what we all do. In the end, the only
> sure criterion is to have fun."
> Edward Tolman
>
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