The word of the day

My 11 year old son has the vocabulary of a 38 year old man. That lives in his mom's basement. Sometimes the words that come out of his mouth make me take pause. For someone who spent the first 4 years of his life essentially wordless (although not silent, by any means), he must have been taking in all the five dollar words he heard people using. Sometimes he uses them in the correct context. Other times, not so much.

Today, in Target, at the check out line we were talking about our impending bike ride. In an effort to get my non athletic self, and my non athletic offspring out and moving, we were planning on biking to the post office to mail out an ebay package. He wanted to get popcorn at the target food counter. So he told me, "first I need to go get my popcorn, and go home and eat it, and then we will go bike riding. Does that sound formidable?" "What?, I said. He again said "does that sound formidable, mom?. I said "yes". Although, I was not entirely sure what formidable meant. Upon looking up the definition of formidable, my answer to his question is actually debatable. Unless he thought I was taking him on a hell ride down a mountain cliff, I guess the correct answer would have been, "no, actually it's not formidable". I think he was trying to make it sound like he was trying to be agreeable. In actuality though, if you were to spend any time at my house listening to my child argue about every dang thing under the sun with me, including trying to be physically fit, you might actually think formidable was the correct word choice.

for·mi·da·ble

ˈfôrmədəbəl,fôrˈmidəbəl,fərˈmid-/

adjective

Inspiring fear or respect through being impressively large, powerful, intense, or capable.

"a formidable opponent"

Synonyms: intimidating, forbidding, daunting, disturbing, alarming, frightening, disquieting, brooding, awesome, fearsome, ominous, foreboding, sinister, threatening, menacing, dangerous