Dear Webster: A Great New Word
The two dullest English courses that I took in the seventies--one as an undergraduate and one as a graduate student--focused on the history of language. I learned from those courses that English, like the Constitution and unlike Latin, is alive and evolving. New words are added, and old words change meaning. I had to explain to some of my eighties and nineties students, for instance, that the word "gay" used to just mean "happy." I enjoyed learning how new words were created in that otherwise dull graduate course. Probably because I had just moved to Los Angeles, the one "new" word that I remember is "smog," which blended "smoke" and "fog." I don't remember (if I knew) who created that word, but I assume it was a meteorologist. Too often, however, new words are created by young folks--rappers, reality stars, gang members, bullies--who are expert jive talkers but know nothing about language. One late nineties or early aughts student made me laugh hysterically (maybe because he was Asian, which is probably why he had the nerve to share the information with a black teacher) when he taught me the new word "wigger," which he said refers to a white person who tries to act like a black person. I don't know who created that word, but I'm guessing that person wasn't an English teacher. Because we are experts in word usage (I'm sure I'm not the only English teacher who wanted to tweet to 2020 candidate and California junior Senator Harris that she should have used "implied," not "inferred," when questioning Barr), we should be responsible for creating new words that are not part of a specialized lexicon (in other words, not jargon). As I revealed in an earlier post (9/2/18), the new general use word that I'm adding to the English vocabulary is "grandstudent."
As I explained in that earlier post, I created that word to fill a need. Teachers who don't have children but want grandchildren (I'm assuming I'm not the only person in this category) can satisfy that need by considering their students' children their grandstudents and their students' grandchildren their great-grandstudents. When I announced my new word on Facebook, first to my family/friends and later in a special ETHS class of '67 group, everyone who commented loved the idea. One former Cal Poly graduate student who wasn't able to take any of my classes, because she worked, and I stopped teaching night classes when my digestive system broke during the late nineties, wanted her two children to be my grandstudents. After reminding her that she had taken my one post-retirement course--a mock correspondence course called Pop Culture 101--I happily welcomed her good looking and talented son and daughter into my village (more like a moderate size town) of grandstudents. Favorite student and officemate Lindy who has four grandchildren (my great-grandstudents) and two step grandchildren (I don't count them because I have more than enough grandstudents and great-grandstudents) was delighted to announce that she had grandstudents too. I called her a greedy grandma.
Like mothers and teachers (see 5/11/14 post), grandmothers and grandteachers are very different. Although my mother has never seen one of her five great-grandchildren and has seen three of the others only once, she used to visit her three grandchildren regularly, and as two of them fondly remember, she always brought homemade chocolate chip cookies when she visited. Even the great-grandchildren received Christmas presents from their California paternal/maternal (she's their maternal grandfather's mother) great-grandmother (and great-aunt) in their early years. I have never seen the majority of my grandstudents and am not sure how many I have. The only ones that I gave presents were the two whose mothers (Pop Culture 101 student Kristy and her friend and actual Sisney student Sarah) invited me to a baby shower before they were born and the two whose mother (Independent Study Graduate Student Suzanne) was a close enough friend that she (and they when they were small) visited me regularly, and so I bought them birthday presents occasionally. I would not have baked chocolate chip cookies even for my grandchildren if I had any, but I did send edible fruit arrangements to one grandstudent (favorite student and colleague Don's son) who was having health problems and to two of Lindy's grandchildren when they lost their father. Those two cuties returned the favor by wishing me a happy birthday (my favorite Facebook birthday greeting ever) on Facebook earlier this year. I also realized too late that I had been acting like a grandteacher before I coined the term. Several of my students' children, including Don's son when he was around ten or eleven, had drawn pictures for me. Like a proud grandmother, I taped those pictures to my office door (Lindy didn't complain), and when I retired, placed them in the file cabinet in my home office. Unfortunately, a couple of years before I officially became a grandteacher, I decided to clean out that file cabinet and tossed my grandstudents' pictures. Now I wish I had kept them so that I could take them with me to the retirement community when I'm 80 and maybe have them placed in the casket with me when I transition to my final resting place, the Forest Lawn Cemetery that overlooks Cal Poly.
My even older and wiser paternal first cousin Ricardo recently highlighted an important difference between grandparents and grandteachers when he was giving advice on Facebook. He told parents and grandparents that they need to model good behavior in their homes so that their children and grandchildren will grow up to be good citizens. I pointed out that teachers have it easier because we just have to model good behavior in our classrooms and offices. I am fairly certain that my behavior in the classroom had little or no effect on how my students raised their children. However, many of my students became teachers, and I am certain that how I taught them and what I taught affected how and what they taught their students. I even heard from one student's student, who asked me about Arthur Ashe (see 10/1/17 post).
I might need to create a new word. What should we call the students of teachers' students? Happy Mother's Day, Mothers!
As I explained in that earlier post, I created that word to fill a need. Teachers who don't have children but want grandchildren (I'm assuming I'm not the only person in this category) can satisfy that need by considering their students' children their grandstudents and their students' grandchildren their great-grandstudents. When I announced my new word on Facebook, first to my family/friends and later in a special ETHS class of '67 group, everyone who commented loved the idea. One former Cal Poly graduate student who wasn't able to take any of my classes, because she worked, and I stopped teaching night classes when my digestive system broke during the late nineties, wanted her two children to be my grandstudents. After reminding her that she had taken my one post-retirement course--a mock correspondence course called Pop Culture 101--I happily welcomed her good looking and talented son and daughter into my village (more like a moderate size town) of grandstudents. Favorite student and officemate Lindy who has four grandchildren (my great-grandstudents) and two step grandchildren (I don't count them because I have more than enough grandstudents and great-grandstudents) was delighted to announce that she had grandstudents too. I called her a greedy grandma.
Like mothers and teachers (see 5/11/14 post), grandmothers and grandteachers are very different. Although my mother has never seen one of her five great-grandchildren and has seen three of the others only once, she used to visit her three grandchildren regularly, and as two of them fondly remember, she always brought homemade chocolate chip cookies when she visited. Even the great-grandchildren received Christmas presents from their California paternal/maternal (she's their maternal grandfather's mother) great-grandmother (and great-aunt) in their early years. I have never seen the majority of my grandstudents and am not sure how many I have. The only ones that I gave presents were the two whose mothers (Pop Culture 101 student Kristy and her friend and actual Sisney student Sarah) invited me to a baby shower before they were born and the two whose mother (Independent Study Graduate Student Suzanne) was a close enough friend that she (and they when they were small) visited me regularly, and so I bought them birthday presents occasionally. I would not have baked chocolate chip cookies even for my grandchildren if I had any, but I did send edible fruit arrangements to one grandstudent (favorite student and colleague Don's son) who was having health problems and to two of Lindy's grandchildren when they lost their father. Those two cuties returned the favor by wishing me a happy birthday (my favorite Facebook birthday greeting ever) on Facebook earlier this year. I also realized too late that I had been acting like a grandteacher before I coined the term. Several of my students' children, including Don's son when he was around ten or eleven, had drawn pictures for me. Like a proud grandmother, I taped those pictures to my office door (Lindy didn't complain), and when I retired, placed them in the file cabinet in my home office. Unfortunately, a couple of years before I officially became a grandteacher, I decided to clean out that file cabinet and tossed my grandstudents' pictures. Now I wish I had kept them so that I could take them with me to the retirement community when I'm 80 and maybe have them placed in the casket with me when I transition to my final resting place, the Forest Lawn Cemetery that overlooks Cal Poly.
My even older and wiser paternal first cousin Ricardo recently highlighted an important difference between grandparents and grandteachers when he was giving advice on Facebook. He told parents and grandparents that they need to model good behavior in their homes so that their children and grandchildren will grow up to be good citizens. I pointed out that teachers have it easier because we just have to model good behavior in our classrooms and offices. I am fairly certain that my behavior in the classroom had little or no effect on how my students raised their children. However, many of my students became teachers, and I am certain that how I taught them and what I taught affected how and what they taught their students. I even heard from one student's student, who asked me about Arthur Ashe (see 10/1/17 post).
I might need to create a new word. What should we call the students of teachers' students? Happy Mother's Day, Mothers!
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