Vocabulary lesson
Posted by Carol Starr Schneider on Apr 4th, 2008
When the college boy was in middle school, he zoomed through his weekly vocabulary assignment, trying to squish all twenty words into one or two sentences.
His strategy was rather ingenious. Fewer sentences meant less time inside and more time outside skateboarding at high speeds through on-coming traffic.
I wasn’t a big fan of my son’s homework assault. I tried to rein him in, without success. Week after week, his mission to underline and clump together as many random words as possible, whether or not they made sense, drove me crazy:
The precocious, malicious, arrogant, putrid adolescent with sapphire hair meandered efficiently down the street, where he met an antique tyrant who embezzled hors d’oeuvres.
As he ran out the front door, skateboard in hand, I’d call after him, “Meandered efficiently! Embezzled hors d’oeuvres! Are you kidding?”
Apparently not. Turns out, Billy was on to something. When his high school teacher sent home a note announcing that the boy was “gifted” in English, naturally, I took all the credit.
“I knew it all along,” I told my husband.
After spending nearly two years at a university whose motto is “Keep Santa Cruz Weird,” it’s nice to know that our son continues to expand his vocabulary… and ours.
Over spring break, he taught us a new word. We were eating lunch with his friend Dan. In between bites of sandwich, Billy was busy with his iPhone. Dan kicked him under the table.
“Stop cupcaking, man.”
Billy kicked back. “I’m not cupcaking.”
Howard and I looked at each other. Cupcaking? What’s that? How long has he been doing it? And more importantly, when did cupcake become a verb?
Billy took a sip of his Shirley Temple and shot Dan a look. We smiled, expectantly, waiting for an explanation.
“Cupcaking is when you text message – ”
“A girl you like,” Dan quickly added.
“Or whatever,” Billy said, hoping to end the cupcaking discussion.
It was vague and I wasn’t satisfied. There had to be more to this cupcaking business. I couldn’t wait to get home and start Googling. And sure enough, I found out that cupcaking can mean many different things.
According to the Urban Dictionary, it’s flirting with your crush via text message: “Dude’s cupcaking his girlfriend again.”
It’s talking lovey-dovey: “He was supposed to go out with the boys, but he’d rather be cupcaking his girl.”
It’s ditching your friends to go after a girl you’re interested in: “JJ’s been cupcaking for like two hours now. Oh well, let’s play some more Guitar Hero.”
At that point, I’d learned everything I needed to know. There was only one thing left to do.
I went upstairs to find my husband.
“Wanna cupcake?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
at 9:51 a.m.
As the mother of three boys - a twenty-one year old college student, an 18-year-old and a 'tween' I can't wait to use this information. Thanks for the enlightenment!