Things Franklin used to say

I first met my nephew Franklin on December 5, 2009, when he was not quite two. I met him at the airport and he was really shy. But he quickly warmed up. In the car on the way home, he was singing the "Elmo's World" theme song. For the next month, I heard him sing that song so much that it was more like his own theme song. The original song says, "That's Elmo's World," but he would sing it, "Maw, mawmo, maa!" The tune was right on, although the last note was a little flat. He would hold out the last note dramatically, and sometimes he would shake his head while he sang it. "Mawmo" was how he said Elmo, although a video indicates that prior to that time he did know how to say "Elmo" without the initial m.

He didn't say very many words, but he did learn my name was Mark, and he liked me. I remember one day I came home from Christmas shopping and he excitedly told his mom that I had come home (using just the word "Mark"). He inherited Preston's dramatic "Uh uh" when he didn't want something, and he would yell it. Once I was playing Minesweeper and we were talking about the bombs; he thought we  were talking about his "bum." He was very good at humming and he would often hum "Jingle Bells."

The next time I saw him was a year later, at Christmastime in 2010, when he was not quite three. I got him a toy stingray, and he knew what it was and could say "stingray." I think he even knew the difference between whales and dolphins.

I had often heard about the linguistic phenomena of overextension and underextension. I had witnessed overextension from Allie (for example, when she would say "bunny" to refer to all small mammals), but I had never seen underextension. But I think Franklin had some. He has a tendency toward physical violence, so on that trip he would hit me, and I would say, "No hitting!" He would say, "I not hit you, I punch you." I think that's underextension because he didn't think that punching was a kind of hitting.

My brother likes to play a game with his kids called "I'm thinking of an animal" where you think of an animal and everyone else has to guess it. On December 27, we were going to a store and playing that game, and we learned how Franklin played. When it was his turn, he would say, "I'm thinking of an animal." Preston said, "Is it an alligator?" Franklin said, "Uh huh!" No matter what Preston would say, he would always be correct. Franklin apparently didn't understand the concept of thinking of his own animal.

Here's a video I took of him playing with the dartboard my sister got them for Christmas. You can hear him say "I break it again," "Can you help," and "I did it!"

Then another year passed, and suddenly Franklin was really shy, even though he really warmed up to me in 2009 and 2010. They came and visited for New Year's in 2011/2012. On the way home from the airport, he was talking about zombies (from the Plants vs. Zombies game), but I really can't recall him saying much else that time.

Then they came out for a day in June 2012. The only thing I remember him saying at that time was "Uncle Mark, do you like Doctah Peppah?"

Then I visited in August last year, and I observed a strange speech phenomenon, one that he still does, even though he's gone to speech classes. Like many kids, he says his r's and l's as w's. But peculiarly, if there is a consonant cluster with one of those letters, he says it as an f. "Try" is "fy," "play" is "fay," "slow" is "fow," "strong" is "fong," "Quin" is "Fin," "tree" is "fee," "swim" is "fim," and so on. The only exception I can think of is "Preston," which he says as "Peston." It's weird, because I know that most of the time he can say the first consonant. This sometimes causes problems: Once he was biking, and I told him he couldn't bike far away because I had to supervise Baby and Baby went slow. He said, "What if I bike fowly?" I said, "You bike fully?" He said, "No, fowly." He meant slowly. Even though he couldn't say the consonants, I was impressed with his adverb use. Although he can't get the phonology down, I think Franklin's done really well with syntax and semantics.

One day they were creating their own Angry Birds games with clay, and Franklin said "bird" without an r, just like they would in England. I can't transcribe it because you wouldn't be able to understand how he said it.

We visited last Christmas, and he said some really R-rated things. He doesn't say those as much now, although he still says some inappropriate things, but they aren't as bad as they were.

Then we just barely visited them again. He still says the consonant clusters as f's. I also noticed he says "tary" instead of "scary." Next time I see him, I'll have to observe the conditions under which he says t. Hopefully, however, his language will be better sorted out by then. Sometimes when he would say "fay," I would try to get him to say it "play." He would say "pway," which is pretty acceptable for a five-year-old. I know he can say the consonants, but I don't know why he doesn't.

Once we were talking about my mom's children and grandchildren. My mom said, "I won't have any more grandchildren until Mark has kids." Franklin said, "But Uncle Mark is not a woman!"

My sister and mom think they are hilarious when they tell the joke that goes, "Ask me if I'm a tree." "Are you a tree?" "No!" Yes, that really is the whole joke. Well, Franklin started making his own variations on that joke using explanations as to why he's not a tree or whatever. Sometimes these explanations are logical, sometimes they're just absurd. For example:
"Ask me if I'm a fee [tree]."
"Are you a tree?"
"No, because fees don't have underwear!"

"Ask me if I'm a gumball machine."
"Are you a gumball machine?"
"No, because gumball machines are aliens!"

Then on our way to the La Brea tar pits, he came up with this one--even though he didn't even know what a tar pit is:
"Ask me if I'm a tar pit."
"Are you a tar pit?"
"No, because I don't have big armpits!"
That made my mom and sister laugh really hard, so Franklin got the impression that he had really created a clever joke, so he kept telling it over and over. He thought it was clever because armpit and tar pit rhyme.

Sadly, this is all I can remember now. This is a result of me not seeing him very often and of him being very shy.