My three youngest granddaughters, in an intrusination-free moment.
Saturday night, we kept all three of our youngest granddaughters. Sunday morning, I was recuperating on the couch, just barely dozing, while the Twins played a few feet away from me.
I was awakened by a sudden loud dispute, as Twin B got frustrated with her sister for grabbing at some toys she was playing with.
“Stop intrusinating me!” she cried.
I lifted my head to look in that direction in wonder: “What did you say?”
Twin A, speaking as one would to a hard-of-hearing elder, explained, “She said to stop intrusinating her.” Like, what did you think she said?
OK, I said. Thank you.
I suppose the word — which I’m guessing is kin to both “intrude” and “insinuate,” and perhaps “excruciating” — if fine, as long as the one to whom it is spoken understands. Which she did.
Related Posts
Their younger cousin, pictured above, is 2 now (and about to become a big sister).
Here’s something she said to me recently…
My wife had called to say that I had both of our car seats in my car, and that she needed one, because she and our youngest grandchild needed to go somewhere. So I drove home.
When I walked into the house, the 2-year-old came straight up to me and with a brisk, businesslike air, apprised me of the situation in these words:
“You have many car seats in your car, and [her grandmother] doesn’t.”
No messing around; right to the point. She was the 2-year-old version of Tommy Lee Jones in “The Fugitive”: Here’s the sitrep; now MOVE.
And yes, I feel very smug around people whose 2-year-olds can barely say “Mommy” and “Daddy.”
I don’t know how much longer I’ll feel like it’s OK to report on the Twins’ doings. I mostly avoid writing on the blog about their older sister, because she can read, and I don’t want to embarrass her.
Won’t be long before they can read, too. Amazing.
Sarah Palin in the making…
My daughters had some words we still laugh about: croach (cockroach), shakemilk (milkshake,of course), wiberby (for library), and pow-pow (powder).
When my oldest couldn’t say tr-, she substituted an “s,” which was fine until she tried to say “truck.” But my youngest went one step further and substituted an “f” for the “tr.”
Nice.
Why is retired newspaper reporter and former city council candidate Mike Miller posing with your grandkids?
I think you are wise, because I would guess that continuing to write about them for too much longer might intrusionate them.
I think they are channeling Calvin (or was it Hobbes) or are just in touch with the collective subconscious of 4 year olds where verbing nouns is an accepted practice. They have clearly verbed the noun – intrusion.
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/calvin.html
This is what you get when you have had a prez who couldn’t speak English. Oh well, at least the your twin grandchild’s word invention showed more originality.
My mother frequently reported that both my older brother and I had a penchant for the ‘ungihooligar’ in our toddler stages. She never figured out what it referred to. I thought the story was just so much hooey (another great word!) until MY first son uttered the same ‘word’ around his first birthday.
Maybe he has the makings of a president…or at least a blogger.
I bet you bring out the slides of your last vacation when you have company over.
I’m persuaded most language change is caused by four-year-olds.
The hard part for me is having to break the news to them that they’ve been using the wrong word. My favorite was the child who’d ask about changing the “chanimal” on TV. It seemed apropos.