“Why is it called that?”: The Dragon and Dragonfly Edition
The worst part about vocabulary questions is how quickly they pile up. Today I answer The Five-Year-Old’s questions about how dragons and dragonflies got their name.
Classic Caterpickles: “Why isn’t the laundromat a real mat for laundry?”
One of my daughter’s favorite episodes of Word World talks about how you can shove two words together to create a new compound word that means something entirely different. For example, “mail” and “box” merge to become “mailbox.” She immediately began applying it to all the words around us, but became stuck on the word “laundromat.” “Mommyo,” she asked. “Why isn’t a laundromat a real mat for laundry?”
“Where do all the silent p’s go?”
After hearing Daddyo explain to The Five-Year-Old that in words like ‘pneumonia’ and ‘pteranodon’ the ‘p’ is silent: Mommyo, facetiously: “Where do all the silent p’s…
“Why is it called ‘punctuation’?”
Lately, The Five-Year-Old has been saving some of her best questions for the bedtime fending-off-sleep process. These questions nearly all have to do with the naming of things. “Why are monarchs called ‘monarchs’?” “Why are beetles called ‘beetles’?” And today’s question: “Why is it called ‘punctuation’?”
“Did kittens get their name in Britain?”
Sometime last year, The Five-Year-Old discovered the highly informative children’s book series “The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That.” The books relay all…
“Daddyo, have you ever made people eat food and then listened to their tummies?”
After an evening of eating pizza, there was some tummy talk. The Four-Year-Old: “Daddyo, have you ever made people eat food and then listened to their tummies?” My husband: “No. But do you want to know what that sound is called?”
“Mommyo, what does ‘gravitationally improbable’ mean?”
gravitationally improbable (grv-tshnˈalē m-prb-bl) adj. phrase that which is unlikely to occur outside of Kitty World due to the limiting effect of gravity Example: The Four-Year-Old’s…
“What’s the word that means ‘careful’ that starts with ‘reck’?”
When my daughter learned that when you call a person reckless, you are basically calling them careless, she naturally wanted to know: “What’s the word that means careful that starts with reck?” Turns out, there isn’t one now, but there used to be.
Aloha
The Four-Year-Old, on learning that Hawaiians use the same word to say hello and goodbye: “How can you tell one Hello-ha from another?”
“Why is it called that?” Caterpickles consults the OED
Lately, The Four-Year-Old has become extremely interested in the origins of words. Questions like “why are grouches called grouches?”, “How did goosebumps get their name?”, “Why are hedgehogs called hedgehogs?”, and “How was the word grump made?” are piling up. So this morning I dragged out our copy of the Shorter OED to find out.
CATERPICKLES 