A LEGO By Any Other Name

Posted by jeannesager on November 6th, 2009 at 9:27 am

lego building set 300x300 A LEGO By Any Other NameWhat does your kid call the square LEGO with four little bumps on top? The round cylinder that looks like a beer mug? The little dot used for headlights on a LEGO truck?

The Morning News chatted up a bunch of kids and found everyone has a different name for individual pieces in the LEGO brick collection. They pulled together a LEGO nomenclature chart that’s a bit of geekery this parent can appreciate.

And it got me thinking about the other randomized things that go by different names house to house - a lot of it seems to be rooted in what their kids call things. An example: my parents still refer to the remote control as a “mote-kin,” a phrase that dates back to when my brother (now in his twenties) was just learning to talk and couldn’t pronounce the real thing. Sometimes it’s shortened simple to the “mote” as in “have you seen the mote?”

It drives my husband bonkers, but then, he has no problem telling our daughter to go put on her “jamas” after her bath. Of course these are all bastardizations of actual words.

For LEGOs, there is no word on the box for each piece. It’s up to your family to come up with your own. Good adjective-using practice for your kids. And off the top of my head, I can’t think of much else in the toybox that provides that opportunity. Truck parts have real names. Ditto doll parts. Puzzle pieces can be described by the picture on them. Play-Doh has its color.

Check out the LEGO nomenclature, than come back and tell us: what else has a strange name in your house?

Image: Amazon

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