Hubby complains a lot that I use strange words. I always just blow him off and think he’s just being too picky.

But it sort of slapped me in the face the other night when I was helping CJ with his homework.

He had written an essay and I was reviewing it for him. He’s a pretty good writer so I mainly was just offering sentence structure changes and loads of spelling changes.

‘CJ, you spelled probably wrong.’

‘Okay,’ he picked up the paper, respelled it, and handed it back to me.

‘No, it’s still wrong.’

‘How do you spell it?’

‘p-r-o-b-a-b-l-y, uh, p-r-o-b-a-b-a-l-y, uh, p-r-o-b…. can’t you just write most likely? I know how to spell that.’

‘Mom, is that why you talk funny? You just use the words you know how to spell?’

Grrr. He is so much like me! Yes! That’s why I use the language I do – many times it’s easier to spell words that are lesser used than the more frequented synonyms.