weinraub’s words

This is the first of what I will label “Guess-You-Had-To-Be-There” (GYHTBT) posts. These are just cute little episodes or observations, usually about the kids, that will almost certainly mean nothing to anyone else, but that I want to remember and preserve. Hopefully my record here will be enough for me to look back and fondly recall it.

So, feel free to bail out here. No hard feeling, I promise. Move along. Nothing to see here. Head on back to your homes, citizens.

First up: When Benjamin (2y8m) is agreeing with something, he says “Uh huh”, just like anyone. But he does it with the cutest melodic flavor, almost a southern lilt. GYHTBT.

Second: Although Benjamin does not yet have a Twitter account, he does have his own preschooler usage of #FTW. Whenever he does something of which he is proud or wins a game, he uses the Thai term ชนะ (”to win”) which is pronounced as cha^H na^H. In keeping with a tradition established by Becca, Benjamin restricts many words to the final syllable only. So, when he wins at something, he will triumphantly announce “Na^H!”. Very cute, but GYHTBT.

Becca still seems to trip over usage of the words “many” and “much”.

Of course, we can see that the issue is enumerability and countability.

So we could say “I ate so much pizza that I gained 10 pounds” or “I ate so many slices of pizza that I gained 10 pounds”. The difference is that I can enumerate and count the slices. [Well, at least in theory. I don't think it's possible to really count the number of slices I ate on my last trip home, hence, the 10 pounds. Groan...]

So, as I dole out crackers to the kids, Becca will say something like “Daddy, Daddy, I want much, please.” Comprehensible, of course, but not quite right.

Still, I have no complaints at all about the one I heard last night as she was falling asleep beside me:

“I love you so many, Daddy.”

Sweet dreams, indeed.

A NY Times piece today on the Microsoft/Yahoo search deal contained a usage of “reticence” where “reluctance” would have better.

After tense, months-long negotiations, the deal was derailed, in part by Mr. Yang’s reticence,…

They would no doubt justify it by pointing to the entry, in their query.nytimes.com service which seems to use the American Heritage Dictionary.

But it still pisses me off. I’m much more in agreement with traditional purists on this point: Reticence is a subset of reluctance referring only to speech.

Sigh…

Benjamin has now begun to use two expressions, one Thai and one English, to express that he wants to do something for himself.

In Thai, to “do it myself” is ทําตัวเอง (tam dtua eng). In keeping with the apprently-now-standard Weinraub early-development pattern of using only the last syllable of anything he wants to express, Benjamin pronounces this as eng. So, when he wants to to do something by himself, without assistance, he will bellow Eng! Eng!.

More recently, he has started using an English version. But instead of “Do it my self” or even the single syllable “It”, he comes out with “Do it! Do it!” as he grabs for the remote or the keys or the scissors or the flamethrower, etc. The pronunciation resembles a kind of run-together, single word, almost a “Doowit”.

Very cute!