I remember sitting at home aged around four while my mother read me a story. It was a large print version of Little Red Riding Hood and I can still remember laughing uncontrollably at the picture of the wolf in retreat (why do children find bottoms so funny?) and then being surprised as the black squiggles on the page re-arranged themselves into words I recognised. There was no stopping me after that.
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Intergenerational Language
I’ve learned such a lot of new words since the children came along. When our eldest was tiny, he struggled with the word “milk” which came out as “knock”. He was a huge knock fan. For quite some time, my husband and I would unconsciously refer to the life-giving fluid in this way, causing confusion in public. I once asked for a little more knock in my coffee at a toddler group, and in an embarrassing moment, one of us bellowed “Can you grab two pints of knock?” when at the supermarket.
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