gotta get a dictionary.

It's always entertaining for me to have all the kids together in one room and listen to them talk.

Over Thanksgiving break (yeah this is one of those posts that I started writing forever ago and kinda forgot about it and now since I have nothing else to say...well, you know) we revisited a conversation that we've had a few times in our house.


Tony claims that the meaning of certain words really don't mean much and you can insert them into any sentence at anytime and the meaning of what you are trying to say won't vary much.

Being that I LOVE words and finding out their meanings and discovering new ways to string them together to get a point across, I had to adamantly disagree (actually, this drove me crazy).


He choose the example "supple" for a word to be used anywhere and any time.

And for months now he will randomly insert it in sentences. Not very often. Just enough to get me to stop what I'm doing and give him "that look" (you know--the mom version of rolling her eyes but with a little bit of "I'm gonna smack you if you keep this up" look thrown in too--you know what I'm saying).

Then he gives me one of his "I'm the baby and I know you think I'm cute" smirks.

He uses it as an adverb:
"I ran supply today in gym class."

He uses it as an adjective:
"You should have seen that movie. It was really supple!"

He uses it as an interjection:
I'm showing him something in a magazine and he says "Supple!!! Mom, Supple!!!"

The worst part is I've never liked this word. As soon as I hear it always think of breasts. As in, "the woman had supple breasts". As in, large....I'm not sure where that comes from.

I thought maybe I should put a stop to this, you know, I didn't want Tony doing this outside of our home and offending someone (or maybe just because it bugged me so much). So I thought I'd look up the word just so I could explain it clearly to him.

And this is what I found....

Sup.ple:
adj. sup·pler, sup·plest
1. Readily bent; pliant.
2. Moving and bending with agility; limber.
3. Yielding or changing readily; compliant or adaptable.

I am so wrong about the meaning of the word. How did I come up with this? I guess it can be used in a sentence describing breasts but not meaning what I thought. Maybe I didn't pay as much attention in English class as I thought.

I don't know why this word bugs me so much (even more now). It grinds on me inside. I think that sounds crazy, but it's the way it is.

And of course, Tony probably realized this from the beginning and that's why he takes such joy in throwing it in when ever he can.

The whole thing reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from The Princess Bride.

Here's a little clip for you.

Oh, and I'm Vizzini....."Inconceivable!" I mean "How Supple!"