Regurgitators Need Not Apply

This past Sunday, writing a guest column for the Globe's "The Word," Erin McKean defends the made-up word. I did my best to not correct my three-year-old son as he invented words for those he could not pronounce (Sitdo for Cheerios very early only on and Gung for Remote Control) and those he mis-identified (calling cream cheese "cream butter"). Eventually he got them right, in his own time, when he was ready. Though he still plays around with sounds and rhymes, making up nonsense words for hanging rhymes. Suess is great for kids, because he shows them the way to be creators when they talk and write...and not just regurgitators.