Big-Worderitis - Is there a Cure?

I can bring you "The Cat in the Hat" too, Mel.
Lilly loves it. I bet she won't mind if you borrow it.

 

I love Dr. Suess!!

The expression thing is right with the kids. And yeah, I had a bigger vocabularly when I was younger too. But a five-or-six year old isn't going to pop out a big word that often; like Yod said, it's a surprise when it happens. And sometimes even when kids do know big words, they don't raelly understand what they mean.

 

I am now officially tempted to run off and order a cart full of Seuss books.


EDIT: okay, I hope you're happy now: I spent 20? for books.
Dr. Seuss

 

I'd recommend reading some of the "For Better or For Worse" comic strips by Lynn Johnston, which can be found online. Right now she's redoing strips where Michael and Elizabeth are young, and it's always seemed to me that she's tried to get them to speak and act realistically for their ages.

 

Speaking of, has she stopped doing that creepy blinking effect that I remember the online strips having some time ago? It was creepy.

 

Charter member of the big word club present and accounted for!

First of all, especially in exposition, don't force yourself to write unnaturally - it'll sound forced and stiff. Do, however, come back for a second reading and look for jarring or obscure issues.

In dialogue, the trick is to "be" your character and "speak" as they speak, especially at the age and situation they are in.

 

I know what you're referring to (it freaked me out the first time I saw it... some things I just don't expect to blink), but I don't know the answer. I had problems getting to her website at times, so I started reading the strips on Yahoo instead. Yahoo never did the blinking AFAIK.

 

Take everything you know and simplify it to the max. I talk like a textbook-- or Shakespeare-- so I know the difficulty But I have little sisters that talk normally, and don't use words like 'vexed' 'oft' and other more classical-sounding expressions.

My little sister though (six years old) correctly used 'platitudinous' in a sentence, which threw me for a loop. But hey, I can't complain, right?