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To: Rambi who wrote (4601)	4/25/2004 8:55:43 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 51713

You have to tell a whole buch of people about the word, spreading the virus of the word, and driving it deeply in to your cellular structure. Or at least that works for me. I still remember opening the door to my class room to yell to the herbicide guy who was spraying the field (on a dare from my class) that he needed to know the word borborygmus, and that I wanted him to use it some time during his day (if only to say "You know, this crazy teacher told me I had to use this word today..." I love borborygmus since we have ALL had it- and almost no one knows the word for it. If Pooh had said "I'm all borborygmus in my tummy" all the little kids would know it- I mean they would learn rumbly anyway. (HAHAH SI spell check does not know borborygmus) You cannot flatter me very efficiently, as I am very suspicious of it. So no, I do not believe you. I tell you this in all sincerity because I esteem you so highly, and know you would want me to be honest with you. It is this honesty that is a tribute to the greatness that is you. Sockdolager was a fantastic word, imo. My student was thrilled- they always are, but he has tried for weeks, so it was especially rewarding for him. He kind of lost heart when I knew gunwhales and trireme. Now I think he is inspired again. Since they have to find the words in their reading, it does make it challenging. We learn a lot more than just words from it. For example, many of my lower readers encounter a foreign word, and they will call me over and say what IS this? And it's usually French- so I tell them- but then I tell them to look a little further in the reading, and the word is usually defined in the same paragraph- since in the romance books they don't expect their readers to know French. So we are learning about reading, as well as vocabulary. Most of my kids didn't realize that foreign words are italicized- they might have been told that (probably not, though) but our class project for words has made us all conscious of this. Oooh- one of my girls is reading A Suitable Boy- and she finds the coolest words- luckily I've read enough Indian lit to know most of them- we talked about suttee last week. Not a one of my students had ever heard of it. My students say that if I could spell I'd be dangerous.