The other day the kids were talking about something being sidewards. They’ve often said it and it’s one of those things that just passes you by; language self corrects, for the most part, as they hear more spoken language and start to read. But there were other parents there when the said it and so I started saying that actually it makes much more sense. Forward, backward . . . sideways? Where did that come from? One of my other favorites of theirs in ‘mines’. Yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs . . . mine? Why drop the ‘s’ all of a sudden? Really sidewards and mines make much more sense.
You hear people laugh about the funny things children say, they print cute articles in magazine that are supposed to give everyone -well, every adult, a laugh; however, I think – with their literal minds – children often see through the ridiculousness that we’ve just come to accept and ignore over the years. A lot of our language doesn’t make sense.
Both the boys started being interested in language by wanting to write before they wanted to read. They ask barrages of questions about how to spell every word they can think of. When this first began I always told them to sounds things out: kah . . . kah . . . K? aaaah . . . aaaah . . . . A? ttttt . . . . ttttt . . . . T? Sounding it out works for your basic three letter words – you still end up with kat as often as cat, but once you get into anything even slightly more complex, sounding it out falls apart. Rope – good old silent e at the end. Soap – two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking (even then, how do you know which the second silent vowel is?) Juice – eeeew; chews – eeeeew. So the more words they ask to have spelled, the more I have realized what a mess this is. Obviously they need to learn to read and write English, but I have no trouble with invented spelling. It makes just as much sense as what has been codified. Especially when your children are trying to write about Anakin Skywalker going to Tatooine; can you imagine the spelling possibilities?
Not only is our muddled language a challenge for children but also for foreign speakers. I worked with a man from the Virgin Islands who also said “mines”. As you say, in actuality it makes perfect sense.
Your grandfather only had an eighth grade education, having been orphaned and having to go out and make his way in the world. He had a phenomenal grasp of mathmatics but he was a terrible speller. However, if you read aloud what he had written phonetically the meaning was always perfectly clear. He was a very slow reader but he read all of his life. I have often thought how determined he must have been to have worked so hard to enjoy a pastime which we do with ease. As in many things in his life he made up for lack of education with sheer grit and effort. In this too, he provided a good example for us all.