Etymology: You Learn Something New Every Day

I just started reading The Girl Who Played With Fire (sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which I enjoyed) and in the very first paragraph of Chapter 1, a person sits down on a chaise longue. I thought "how strange! a typo in the first paragraph!". Now I have to say, I pride myself on being a bit of a wordsmith and etymology always fascinates me, so I was surprised to find out that this isn't a typo at all. Though the word has been Americanized to chaise lounge (dating as far back as the 1850s), implying a chair that one might lounge in, the original French word was chaise longue, meaning a long chair (which also makes sense).

If you're interested in slightly more background on this interestingly amended phrase, I found a great site called World Wide Words that offers this explanation. And if you're an etymology junkie like me, I'll warn you that this site might just suck up a bit of your time!

Those Dang Invisible Milestones Again

Milestones are easy to spot, the new things that your kids do, from walking and talking up through their first sleepover or learning to drive. The invisible milestones slip by us: the last time they crawl or babble, the last time they climb in bed in the middle of the night or ask us to drive them somewhere.

Somewhere in the last two weeks, the very last mis-pronounced word passed from my teenager's lips. When they're little, they use those cute mistaken words all the time, from pasghetti to hostible, it's so cute you can't stand it. I've never understood the adults that correct those verbal boo boos, because all too soon you turn around and they're gone. Very few survive the last years of childhood. For my big guy it was "specific", which always came out "pacific", until now. I don't remember the last time he said it wrong, but all I know is that now he says it right. I guess it goes with the fuzzy little mustache. Sigh.

Warm Sleeves and Impenetrable Hair

One of the funnest things in parenthood is the way the whole world becomes revealed to you through the eyes of your kids. You get to examine everything in new ways, think about things from different perspectives, when you really listen to what they say, to the questions they ask and the observations they make. Even to the words they use. I remember when Mackenzie was very young, he would ask me to "unpeel" a banana for him. It makes perfect sense - you get "undressed" when you take your clothes off, why then wouldn't "unpeeling" a banana mean removing the peel? He would also turn "upside-up" after being "upside-down".

Both of the kids are older now, the cute phrases of toddler hood are mostly far behind us, but they still occasionally surprise me with funny sayings that make me smile. This week I overheard one of them telling the other that it was cold outside and they needed to find a "warm-sleeved shirt". Mackenzie still says "orderwise" instead of "otherwise" some of the time. And he exclaimed in dismay that his hair was an "impenetrable fortress" when trying to shampoo it (I tend to agree - this kid has the thickest hair in existance. He can dunk himself completely underwater and it's still dry five layers down, like some kind of retriever dog bred for cold waters).

I know when the last of childhood's insightful and engaging speech patterns is gone, I'll be just a bit sad. I still can recall the day that Asa first called Mackenzie by his real name. Prior to that (and to all of our befuddlement) she had chosen to call him "Geegaw". I think a tear slipped out of my eye when her toddler voice first said the name "Mackenzie". Then again, I still call my sister by my childhood knickname for her, so maybe there's some hope for a few remnants, at least for awhile.