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February 01, 2007
“Lolly, Lolly, Lolly”
As a librarian, particularly a children’s librarian, I abhor censorship, but when you work with children as long as I have, the urge to censor something is bound to creep up every now and again. And maybe it’s the stress and sleep deprivation talking, but I had my first true urge to censor something the other day, something that I felt in my heart maybe Lucas just wasn’t ready for.
Adverbs.
You heard me right. We’ve been doing Mad Libs in the mornings, and while Lucas has nouns, verbs, and adjectives down, adverbs are still giving him trouble. So we’ve been working on them, but the other morning I thought, “Why am I doing this?” I mean, people actually really totally overuse adverbs all the time, and I had this crazy thought that if Lucas didn’t know what adverbs were, maybe he wouldn’t wind up having to go through all the trouble of having to learn not to overuse them. I know this is crazytalk on any number of levels, but it’s interesting to me that the thing that activated my censorship gene wasn’t cursing or innuendos or nudity – no, no, my problem turned out to be with a part of speech.
Could I be more of a nerd?
Posted by adrienne at February 1, 2007 06:16 AM
Comments
Uh, yeah sweetie, you're ranking right up there on the nerd-o-meter today. But we love you immensely for it! : )
Posted by: JJ at February 1, 2007 08:55 AM
"Immensely" is an adverb. I happen to like adverbs, particularly awkward-sounding made up ones, like "disenchantingly" or "underwaterly"- as in "After the boat capsized, the gentleman found himself disenchantingly sinking in an underwaterly fashion."
Posted by: jp at February 1, 2007 01:59 PM
Actually, I really tend to overuse totally stupid adverbs. My first drafts are shockingingly peppered with them, and a lot of them wind up making their evil way into my final edits in spite of my best efforts.
Posted by: adrienne at February 1, 2007 02:32 PM
Now I have "Lolly lolly lolly get your adverbs here" stuck in my head.
Thanks.
Off the topic, but do you ever listen to a book on tape and want to throw it out the car window? I'm listening to The people of sparks right now, and the book itself is sort of annoying but not too bad, but the reader is so annoying that I want to write her hate mail!
I'm still listening though because I'm more than half way through, and I'd hate to think I couldn't finish it.
Posted by: Cathy at February 1, 2007 03:53 PM
I plead the fifth.
Posted by: tonderdo at February 1, 2007 04:03 PM
I am however overjoyed that you are teaching Lucas grammar because it is a weakness of mine. I write well, at least I have been told I do, but I have no idea how I do it. Eighth grade grammar was particularly distressing because Brian Shade always beat me on the stupid quizzes, not hard when I consistently scored at 60%, and he was not a gentleman about it.
Posted by: tonderdo at February 1, 2007 04:07 PM
I'm with Tammy. I write pretty well, but try to get me to explain the parts of speech to you-- forget it. I hate parts of speech with a passion.
Posted by: Sarah at February 2, 2007 08:55 AM
You are a nerd, but you're in good company:) When people give me the "you're such a geek" look...I say yes, I am a geek, this is not news...
Posted by: Emily at February 2, 2007 05:01 PM
Cathy, I meant to write that I was so glad you got my reference. I hate to think of the other grown-ups forgetting their Schoolhouse Rock. :)
And I have to say that being a nerd has served me well so far in this life....
Posted by: adrienne at February 5, 2007 06:51 PM