The kid in the video is pretty big! I guess mom and everyone must have been continuing to just speak to him for years and years before this happened. These things always vary wildly from person to person, but don't lose heart! <3
There has never been any indication that he was on the spectrum, but once he started talking he became very well spoken, and almost dictatorial with how we spoke as children. Don't get me wrong, I loved this man with every part of my being, and he is the reason I am now an English teacher, but god dammit Doug, we can we please use the word "got"?
You're right, there is no need for the word got in nearly every example. I laugh about it with my own students and they try to stump me, but not once have they managed to find a context where it cannot be replaced with a better word.
It is "common" as he would have said. Coming from an Australian Electrician, that is kind of funny.
Oh and he would have swatted you across the head for your (American) spelling of "learnt". ;)
I had an 8th grade reading teacher that was super awesome. Was the first to treat us as people and not kids. He let us eat/drink or even curse (respectfully) on papers and while Q+A parts happened. He had 3 rules.
1) If you get caught with food/drink/cursing, yoi were on your own and he didn't see/hear it.
2) never say "god damn" was religious, but respectful
3) never use the word "very"
He legit hated that word and I forgot until your story of the word "got". I never thought of it being a useless word. Unsure how often I use it day to day.
I had a science teacher who taught us technical writing. he said to never use the word "it". For example, if you handed in a lab report and your observations said: "When I added the baking soda to the vinegar, it began to bubble" he'd mark me down and say "what began to bubble? the vinegar? the baking soda? the mixture? the flask? the table?
frustrating at the time but definitely helped me develop into a very clear and precise writer and get my B.Sc later down the road.
I had a high school teacher like that. He wanted us to try using the words we read in conversation, not rely on simple broad terms from childhood. It was coming from a good place of generally wanting to improve our vocabulary so we'd have better prospects in life.
This was at a school just outside the hood where a lot of kids didn't graduate because they went to prison when they were 18. He wanted to break that cycle so badly and give us whatever he could to succeed. He noticed I was poor but an avid and very advanced reader and bought me books with his own money that were more on my level than what the school library offered. He was truly a great guy.
Don't worry, I wont tell on you for using the simplified version of English. Most people do. I have held onto my grandfather's archaic ways. Including gaol. I love confusing kids with that one :)
Oh and my lord, if he ever heard me say the letter H as anything other than Aitch, I would have been disowned.
One of my great joys in life is when I get questioned on it in the classroom, and the justification for "haytch" is that it has to start with the sound of the letter. I always respond with "Oh, you mean like WoubleU?" ;)
No one said anything about a bigger word? Have is only 1 extra letter, and sounds a lot better. I am not talking thesaurus levels here.
"I've got" replaced with "I have" is neither more complicated, or masturbatory. Nor is it unfamiliar. In fact it removes the contraction and makes readability easier.
I’m autistic and I have the same expectations for my children 😆. People would often comment on how I spoke to my children when they were very young.
“You talk to them like they are adults.”
Or,
“They aren’t going to understand you if you use those big words, they don’t know what it means”
To which I would reply that I don’t know why I would speak to them any different and that they don’t know what ANY words mean currently as they are learning to speak. So I chose to use words of varying complexity but similar meaning because I would have to explain the meaning and context anyway.
They both have above average vocabularies now, and while they speak to their friends within the tone and inflection that is popular today, they know that I cannot stand that and respect my wishes to speak a bit more eloquently 😆.
Given the various levels of neurodivergence in our family, raging from incredibly intelligent to significant impairment, I wouldn't be surprised if he was on the spectrum. Diagnosis certainly wasn't a thing, even when he passed away when I was 17.
Your grandfather reminds me of a joke I heard on the show QI years back.
“A British couple decided to adopt a German baby. They raised him for years, however they began to get worried as he never spoke, and they believed he might be non-verbal, going so far as to take him to therapy, which was fruitless.
Then, when the child was 8 years old he had a strudel and said ‘It is a little tepid.’
His parents, of course shocked that he was suddenly speaking, asked ‘Wolfgang, why have you never spoken before?’, to which the child replied ‘Up until now everything has been satisfactory.’”
Well it’s wrong regardless, British dictionaries don’t recognise it as a word. Just because younger Brits are speaking American English more due to social media doesn’t make the word correct.
What do you mean British dictionaries don’t recognize it as a word? Do you have an example of a British dictionary that doesn’t recognize it as a word? The Oxford English Dictionary recognizes it.
Can’t access the info with Oxford Dictionary without paying a subscription which I’m not doing for the sake of a petulant argument on the internet, Cambridge dictionary has it as American English only, not British English.
My youngest brother rarely (almost never) spoke words until he was about 3. Then one morning he walked into the kitchen and said ‘time to make the donuts!’ My parents were flabbergasted lol. Hasn’t shut up since lol.
I remember reading a story of a non verbal child. She was like 4 or something when someone asked her, like she was still a baby, “can you say cat?”
And she (according to this story) snapped back “yes, I can, why do you ask?” The parent writing the story said she became a very well spoken girl after that moment.
It’s etched into my memory for some reason and I’m glad it is because I started teaching EFL to young kids and it helped me guide parents of young children through their worries a lot.
I was non-verbal besides less than a handful of key words to all adults until I was 4, but I talked to my best friend / next-door neighbor when adults weren't around.. Until one day I shocked my mother by talking in complete coherent sentences (for a 4 year old at least).
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u/shitboxfesty 16d ago
As a parent of a nonverbal child, this absolutely blows my mind. And gives me hope. I’d be getting a new tattoo that says good morning