Monday, June 16, 2008

Dirty Old Dadvadant






My students created art cars on their last day of second grade art. Before the big race at the end of class they had to tell me the name of their car so that I could write it up on the scoreboard. When the little boy who just arrived from India told me his car's name, I had to ask him to repeat it several times. After the third repetition, I asked his partner if she understood what he was saying. She just grinned and shrugged. So I had him spell it for me. d a d v a d a n t. He didn't quite understand when I asked him what "Dadvadant" meant, so Dadvadant it was.

Now at my house, when we don't understand a word, we may debate the meaning; we may look it up in the dictionary; or we may invent a meaning all our own. When I was retelling PapaMark about the big wacky race, I told him about Dadvadant. PapaMark suggested that in Hindi it might mean "Man With Big Viril .......um......man parts." I about busted a gut. So for the rest of the weekend "dadvadant" was a favorite word in our conversations. Example: On our bike ride....."Hey, did you see that geezer "dadvadant" chasing that hoochie?"

Children are so inspirational.

3 comments:

Diana said...

I had a little tacker in one of my classes who had a really bad speech impediment. None of the kids or I could understand him. However, he loved to tell his news about what he did on the weekend. I tried to laugh and nod my head in the right spots and then the kids had question time. As no-one could understand him, the kids used to ask him tentatively the same question "So did you like it". Always made for interesting news.

Anonymous said...

I thought our house was the only one with these wacky conversations. Can't wait to use this new word at our house with certain modifications! (I don't want to have to explain viril)

daysease said...

HILARIOUS!!!! YOUR DAD SOUNDS LIKE HE HAS AN AMAZING AND QUICK SENSE OF HUMOR. I WOULD HAVE BEEN SPLITTING MY GUT, TOO. :-)THANKS FOR THE ONLY SLIGHTLY MUFFLED CHUCKLE!!!! :-)