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Sunday, May 10, 2009

Kids and Exaggerations

I was walking past a playground one day when I overheard a kid telling his father a story he had heard in school earlier. The story revolves around 2 animals that refused to help one another despite their unfortunate circumstances, thus resulting in their demise. The dad patiently heard his kid out, egging him on with, "Yes", "Uh hmm" and "And then?".

I say "patiently" because the kid was being very animated and kid-like in his discriptions. He had this shoutish voice that you'd expect of a 5 year old boy and kept pausing every 2 or 3 sentences to think about what to say next.

But the most interesting thing about the kid's story telling was how he seemed to be exaggerating everything. The two animals weren't just angry to be caught in their predicaments. They had to be "very very very very angry". They weren't willing to help each other. They were "very very very very unwilling". In fact, in every 2 or 3 sentences he had to take a pause, you're bound to hear some form of exaggeration. It's an exaggeration of the "very very very very" kind.

It got me thinking about how kids pick up languages. Obviously, the more commonly used words are picked up and put into sentences much faster by kids. (However, the exception is the Singapore Pledge. I only began to understand the meaning of "democracy" some time in secondary school, despite having to say the word "democratic" every single day since primary school.) Despite kids' amazing abilities to grasp and learn languages though, you cannot expect a 5 year old to possess a very comprehensive vocabulary.

My opinion here is that the exaggerations that make kids kids, with their truly enthralling brand of storytelling, is the result of a lack of vocabulary. Whereas adults will get straight to the point of saying the house is "huge" or "extremely big" or "immense", a kid will wildly flail his arms to encompass the "huge-ness" while pouting his lips to emphasize how "very very very very big" it is.

However, adults have lost the capacity to handle another adult telling stories in the same way. They think it's childish, immature and just plain freaky. Adults hardly get enchanted with one another. I guess it's a good thing, because that leaves all our attention for such enchanting antics for the kids. -Jimmy