A Student's Dictionary

Madeleine continues to enjoy the Students' Dictionary that she brought home from school yesterday.  She is using it for ALL kinds of knowledge, since it contains trivia and not just word definitions.  This morning, while I was in the shower, she came into the bathroom to read me all the so-called "Big Words" listed in her dictionary, as well as their meanings.  I couldn't really hear her over the sound of the water running, but I caught the tail end as I turned the shower off and grabbed a towel.

MADELEINE: "This word is forty-five letters and its definition is a lung disease caused by breathing in certain particles."  (looking up at me in horror) That's disturbing.

(I later discovered the word to be "pneumonoltramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.")

I was about to leave the bathroom when I was assaulted by more trivia.

MADELEINE: Mommy!  "Ten.  One Hundred.  One Thousand.  One Million.  One Billion.  One Trillion.  One Quardillion.  One Quintillion.  One Sextillion.  One Septillion.  One Octillion.  One Nonillion.  One Decillion.
ME: Yeah.  That's a lot of zeros.
MADELEINE: (looking at me as if I were a dimwit blindly missing the point.)  It's the MONTHS.

Yeah.  No, it's really not though.

MADELEINE: Mommy?  I *like* the names of those numbers, even though I *don't* like saying ONE of the words that's part of one.
ME: What word?
MADELEINE: (giving me a significant look)
ME: Sex-tillion?
MADELEINE: Yeah.

Yup.  The numbers are named after months and sex, that's right.

At breakfast, Madeleine insisted that I quiz her on words from her dictionary, which she would then spell to me.

ME: What words do you want?
MADELEINE: I don't know.  Just quiz me on HARD words.
ME: Okay.  (flipping through the "A" pages) "Anthropologist."
MADELEINE: Yikes.  Well, Mommy, I didn't mean THAT hard.


The one thing Madeleine hasn't used her dictionary for?

MADELEINE: (From her bedroom, with the door shut) MOOOOOMMMMYYYY!
ME: (wondering if I'd heard something) Yeah?
MADELEINE: (silence)
ME: (Getting up from reading my book to go to her bedroom.) Did you call me?
MADELEINE: Yeah.  Um, Mommy?  Well, I *could* use my dictionary for this, but that would take more TIME, so...what's a B-U-R-E-A-U?


Yup.  It's a good thing she's got this dictionary.