Increasing Our Vocabulary

          I am familiar with the word “Hullabaloo” – I have used it before.  Not often.  It’s barely in my vocabulary.  I don’t recall ever saying that word around Jenna.  But she picked it up from somewhere.

          She and I classmate were sitting behind me in the car and were talking about “eating the flag”.  What?  She explained that the class had made American flags out of graham crackers, blue and white frosting, red licorice, and chocolate chips. 

          “Oh, sorry,” she says. “WHITE chocolate chips.”

          She then turns to her classmate and says, “Some people in this car don’t believe that white chocolate is really chocolate.  She thinks white chocolate is really just a bunch of hullabaloo”

          She may be right.  After all, if it doesn’t have any cocoa products, I don’t think it has the right to be called “chocolate” – but I don’t ever remember using the word “hullabaloo” to describe my disgust.  It’s not that I dislike white chocolate so much as I am appalled that it doesn’t live up to the “chocolate” name.

          I was so floored by her vocabulary that I didn’t think to ask her where she had heard that word.  When she returned home I asked. 

          “Martha Speaks,” she said proudly.

          I do like that she enjoys PBS programs and that she learns from them.  Thank you PBS for shows like Martha Speaks and Word Girl that help my child to increase her vocabulary.