The Mederos

by Julie Medero and Shawn Medero.

Martin Tests Word Order and Other Randomness

Published December 6, 2008

Martin’s figured out he can swap words around within a sentence and that doing so might provoke a different outcome.

Sometimes it doesn’t work.

I want not go outside

moments later…

I not want go outside

Besides testing his world with language, Martin has many phrases (often used in a socially unacceptable ways) that tend to get a chuckle.

We’ll often be on a busy bus headed home from a long day when Martin will point at someone and say:

I want that guy get off bus.

He enjoys when people get off the bus because the door opens and the floor/ceiling lights come on. Still, these moments make you blush. Last week he at least asked someone to sit next to us.

Along the “that guy” lines, there are a number of inquisitive phrases he uses with either males or females. The pattern is usually: (WH-word) "that guy" (verb)?

What that guy do/doing?
Where that guy go/going?

Martin also has a pretty direct approach to asking for stuff:

Hey mommy/daddy read this!
Hey mommy/daddy eat this!
Hey mommy/daddy play trains in my room!

It is a fun time to be a parent.

One Response

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  1. Britta

    Hehe cute! You might like these posts by a linguist about his little kid’s adventures in language development – I’m not sure how old his son is, but I like the observations.

    December 10, 20085:24 am

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