Yesterday afternoon, Jee was in the process of trying to rehang his calendar on the wall and I suppose he needed a nail, but he asked...
"Mom, can you get me a lock poker?"
"What?"
"A lock poker."
(befuddled look on my face)
"A lock poker! A thing that you poke in the door lock to unlock it. You know!"
Oh... why didn't he ask for "a nail"? Note for those who don't live in our home: we use regular hammer-it-into-the-wall nails to open doors. No fancy pantsy lock picks for us.
What I thought odd was that he defined that particular object by its most common use in his view of the world. Nails were designed first and foremost to pick locks.
He also understood the difference between "pick" and "poke". You don't really pick at the lock; that's a task better fitted for the fingers. You poke at the lock mechanism clumsily with the sharp end of the nail. Lock poker.
Funny how vocabulary develops.
