Word Play!

When I had my own Gr. 3 class, I had one period a week where we just played with words. They could be the spelling list for the week, words we'd been struggling with in our journals, or any words we thought were interesting.

We traced them on our backs, in the air, glued them with yarn on paper, used huge markers on chart paper, etched them in plasticine, painted them, used chalk on black paper, mimed them, played password, made up rhythmic cheers as each letter was said....the list is endless and the kids loved it. They didn't realize that in playing with them, they were really studying, and it was a heck of a lot more fun than writing them out 5 times each!

I realized that in my daily life, I really do play with words quite a bit and even coin quite a few new words and phrases from my OWN "dictionary"! It's just fun and always gets a reaction from people.

For example, I tend to "Verbify" nouns, (as I just did now!) I named my cat, "Mooky" and she really suits this because she has her own cool walk and springs about in a prancing kind of motion. I called it "mookying" around and it so suits her!

If I'm going to get new colour and highlights in my hair, I say I'm "re-blonding" it or "de-skunking the skunk line"!
When a child asked me in music class if I was going to be guitaring to a song, I thought it was neat and I just started using it.

Another form of word play I do is re-naming things by association. My husband wears those dollar store glasses to read with and I swear he looks just like one of those badgers in, The Wind In The Willows, in his tree house, snug by the fire, sitting in the armchair, watch on a chain in his waistcoat and those half spectacles perched way down on his nose. Now, all his glasses will forever more be called, "The Badgers"! Our friends have all picked up and use this term too.

In fact many of my new words catch on and somehow just become part of the language of those around us. Talk about local vernacular! I think it's neat. Words of this kind are more lively, fun and colourful. They enrich and infuse our language with more connected personal meaning.

Do you play with words? What phrases or words have you invented? Have you started using some new word because someone created it and you just love it??!


Mother of Invention, just goofin' around, transforming and tailor-making some more words!