Alot more than I'd ever thought, before my boys started asking about them, it seems. There's the history of a word, for example. Not its origins (though I've always found that interesting enough), but the history of how it came to be known to our boys. For instance, when you hear your small boy say (in an innocent, even extremely cute way, and to noone in particular, as he twirls around, waiting his turn to be zipped up before an outing), "You g*d*a*n idiot!" you are, of course, forced to pause and think - once you've got over the shock of it, that is.I knew it was almost impossible that they'd ever heard the two words together. Not that I've never used them together, but I'm sure I'd never done so in their hearing, and never with the word "you" attached to them.
The answer to the g*d*a*n part was the easiest. I'd said it under my breath at least twice in the past few weeks, when a zipper went wonky, for instance, or when the closet door in the entryway refused to budge, and it wasn't clear why, and the cold was coming in, and we were in a hurry to get going. My own usage had surprised me, actually, because I'm much more likely to use the F-word in these cases (heh! heh! ...sorry, Dad). The boys must've been milling about when the word was uttered. Got to be a bit more careful, I guess. Though then again... it's a subject for discussion, really. More on that later, maybe. For now:
But "idiot"? It's bandied about in French like you wouldn't believe ("T'es idiot ou quoi ?!" "Sois pas idiot!" and so on), and even to children (though certainly not by Jean-Philippe), but I couldn't figure out when they'd have heard it in English.
I said (and I had to surpress a little laugh; it honestly was funny, the way he'd said it), "Honey, that's a terrible thing to say! It's very insulting. Why did you say that?" Leo looked at me and said, "Mommy, what's an idiot?" I tried to explain, but 'stupid' and 'dumb' aren't words they hear, either, so I wasn't feeling very effective. Then he said, "The bad guys in the lots-of-puppies movie are idiots?" My face scrunched up in a questioning look for a second. He contniued, "Yeah, because the bad lady, she say, 'YOU IDIOTS!'"
Ah-h-h-h! Illumination. Cruella DaVille, yelling at her bungling cohorts! And then, as we watched Cars together this weekend, I heard it again. It's everywhere, this word. Just waiting for innocent young 'uns to pick it up and attach g*d*a*n to it!
Still, one of the things that I was impressed with, in a general sort of way, is the fact that he'd taken two words whose meanings he didn't understand - I didn't give him a definition for g*d*a*n this time; some things can wait - and strung them together in a meaningful (if injurious) way.
And the conversation about the meaning of the one and the forbidden usage-by-small-ones of the other were eventually and clearly understood. Another odd notch on their learning belts.
