Monday, March 22, 2010

Streets Ahead


Had lunch with Number One Son today. We made it a little more special than usual, after being cooped up inside most of yesterday afternoon thanks to what will hereby be known as The Big Storm: Macca's and Sesame Street, in order to celebrate our new-found freedom. (Yes, I'm aware that sitting inside in front of the telly may not be using the grander weather to it's full potential, but we were happy enough...)

I am often guilty of tuning out most of the television shows my boys like - I find In the Night Garden particularly conducive to a spot of mental planning, for work or writing - but I sure paid attention to the lady in the lovely yellow shirt when she started to teach my child how to say "humungous". At risk of sounding like the crotchety old cow that I try to keep buried inside (for the most part), times sure have changed since my day...

Number One Son dutifully repeated the word "humungous" a few times, along with Yellow Shirt Lady, until she was joined by a very large (yes, humungous) pink dragon. At which point he turns to me and says, "Wow, Mum. That dragon sure is humungous."

If you happened to click through the handy little link I popped in there a couple of paragraphs ago, you will find two entries for humungous, both of which emphasise that it is slang. I've got nothing against Yellow Shirt Lady teaching my child some commonly used words that may not yet have made it into the standard dictionaries (it's certainly not included in my massive 2005 Collins Australian), but I'm wondering what I might find him saying next? "Kudos for the grouse sangers, Mum"? "Kindy was totally random today"?

Never mind. Big Bird is so gay these days, anyway...

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