Normally, this is something that we say to one of the children when they start using words like “Toilet”, “Ta” or “Night night”: the middle-class enzyme kicks in and we defend our vocabulary as if it were our fortress (and now is not the time to go into the fact that “vocabulary IS our fortress, ackshooally, Crispin…”).
However, there was something of a greater imperative at work the other day, when Youngest Son came in to talk to Wife and me.
“Daddy, I have got some good news.” (This is his opener to cover a range of positive events from “I have not wet my nappy” to “Third World debt has been cancelled”)
“Oh yes, what’s that, darling?”
“Well, I have tidied up the sofa.”
“That’s very kind of you darling.”
“Yes, because before that it looked like shit.”
“What did you say?”
“It. Looked. Like. Shit.”
“What was that last word?”
“SHIT.”
“We don’t use that word, darling.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
[...] Normally, this is something that we say to one of the children when they start using words …http://eiljert.com/2008/05/26/where-did-you-learn-that-word/What did you learn today? 4/29/08 – The Unofficial Opie and Anthony …What did you learn today? [...]