Word game

My oldest son has a large vocabulary, which I love, except sometimes I don't know what he's talking about. "Don't worry. I won't do a meddycore job," he assures me, regarding his thank you notes to his aunts and uncles.

Funny how a little thing like the accent on the wrong syllable can completely throw off a person's understanding. When I figure out what my son is trying to say, I correct him. "It's mee-dee-O-ker," I tell him, showing my teeth on the E’s and stressing the third syllable. "Whatever," he says, shrugging.

I like that he's so comfortable trying out new words, especially since I'm such a coward about it. Sometimes in conversation I can see the opportunity coming up to use a new word but I'll be unsure about how to pronounce it. When the space to drop the word in actually happens, I'll substitute a more familiar word or phrase that conveys my meaning, but not exactly. It’s not the efficient, new word.

Once, when I was twelve and reading a Nancy Drew book, the word "antique" showed up in the story. I pronounced it "anti-cue" in my head. I remember being puzzled by it, but it didn't seem to have any bearing on whether or not Nancy recovered from being knocked unconscious and locked in a cellar by her villainous high school physics teacher, so I never looked it up. Fifteen years later I heard it used by someone in passing and finally, it clicked. "Oh, anTEEK!" I chirped, which brought me some weird looks but lots of personal satisfaction.

Thank goodness my son isn't hung up on whether or not he's got it right. "God is omni-SESS-ant," he says. "I think you mean, omNIscient," I say helpfully. "WhatEVER," he says, grinding his teeth.

"I think all the RESS-i-pants will like these, don't you, Mom?" he told me the next morning, showing me the progress he'd made on his thank you list. "ReCIPients, and yes, they will." "Aauughh! WHATEVER!"

I once corrected someone’s pronounciation of “harassment”. Annoyed, the speaker informed me that the polite thing to do when someone mispronounces a word is to mispronounce it yourself later in the conversation. But surely that would simply reinforce the wrong way to say the word and the next person they use it on may well doubt their intelligence.

Yesterday my son and I disagreed over the word "penalize." It's PEEnalize" I told him. "No, it's PENalize," he shot back. We looked it up and discovered we were both right. "But mine is listed first," I said smugly. "WHATEVER!" he snarled.

I worry that all my knee-jerk correcting will stifle his linguistic daring. What if, because of my need to have my kids be perfect, my darling child quits talking altogether? What if he stops trying out new words because he's afraid some lurker will spring out and smack down his fledgling attempts at elegant word usage?

Last week I bought him a dictionary and put it on his desk. But lately I've been wondering if maybe he's thinking he doesn't need to look things up when he's got an obsessive compulsive mother hanging on his every word.

Like today I heard him in the kitchen talking to his brother. "The next time I tell you to stop it will be quite a bit more veHEment," he warns. "VEEhement," I say from the next room. "STOP!" he yells. I look up and he's grinning. Who needs a dictionary when you’ve got Mom?