travails of vocabulary building-an adult point of view of a child's point of view

For those of us who have had to prepare for the 'GRE' or the likes this is familiar. We increase or try to improve our vocabulary at a jet rapid pace.. Mind you I am not talking about those extraordinary few who have worked on these matters from childhood (reading books, newspapers and Wodehouses) in search of those many good words.. I am talking about the ordinary lot of us who act only when push comes to shove.. With GRE looming on us we cram all the words we could into the real estate called memory which 'oh! so modestly designed by our creator and so suboptimally used by the created', and then we are told using those words as often as possible is a good way to reinforce that learning. Our overcrowded flash cards dance in front of our eyes... and we say 'gangrene' instead of 'chagrin'; 'precipitous' instead of 'precious'.. the confusions are endless.

Of late I notice that the 4 year old in our family is in a similar situation. Having to learn a lot in two different languages, added to it the burden of knowledge and the compulsion to show it all off. Here are some of the results of this phenomenon.

-My stomach is 'sunset'-for upset

-'Beef'root it has lot of 'spiders' so its good for you. (We understood from what she said that.. beetroot has lot of fiber and so its good for you. So her teacher told her. or one has to think that it's a carnivore's interpretation of a herbivore's world ;)

-His 'per' is advait. 'refering to her brother's name, replacing name with per.. quite involutarily.

I wish I had written down all her one-liners.. they would have made a great script for a stand up comedian.. much better than 'Bush'isms.. Oops!! What did I just say!! I will update when i remember more