My new fourth grader and I are meeting for the second time to study. She is new to me, but not new to difficulty. Not new to the constant attempt of making sense of something (the writing system) that often feels nonsensical. “Rules” that feel empty. Vacuous.
After noticing a /ʃ/ represented as a <ch> in the word <machine>, we fall into a discussion about <chef> and <chief> being lexical doublets, the same word that came into English from French at different times. It’s like a favorite book you have owned as a child, that you receive as a gift in adulthood. The cover is new and reworked, but the contents and publisher are the same.
From this, we discuss the beauty of cooking shows, specifically, the delight she and I both take in reality TV cooking. “Oh my gosh, I have learned so many cooking terms!” Most of which, I consider to myself, are French. All of our differing words for meat- pork, mutton, veal, beef- all French. This versus the Old English, or Germanic words for animals- pig, sheep, cow. Think of the incredible amount of words that we use in the kitchen, with ease, that are so obviously NOT English: sauteé, bisque, gratin, bouillon, consomme, julienne, jus, and even crouton for heaven’s sake!
My student and I, now salivating thinking of the delicious concoctions we’ve seen masterfully whipped up in a quick 30 minute challenge, have begun saying “Oui chef!” to each other. When I ask her to be my “Sous chef”, she smiles and says she has no idea what that means. We write it and note that it is decidedly not English. I tell her that I do not know much French, Spanish and Italian being my only ventures into the Latinate branch or Romance Languages, but I have heard this <sous> at the beginning of <sous vide>. I know this has something to do with sealing a delightful morsel in a bag and cooking it at a certain water temperature, yielding a perfectly done piece of meat. However, I have no idea what the term <sous vide> means in French.
After a quick Google search, we have not only watched some chefs utilizing this technique, but we have found that the literal meaning of this phrase is “under vacuum”. We stare at each other, my eyes particularly larger as I start to connect dots in my spider web of cognition.
“We HAVE to look at vacuum,” I say to her. She nods, obviously enjoying my honest enthusiasm. If you ask any of my students, they will tell you how incredibly joyous I am when I am teaching, especially when I am making new connections, which is most likely every time I study with a kid. I often audibly gasp, scaring the daylights out of whoever might be within earshot. Aren’t “AHA!” moments one of the great joys of life?
<vac(e) + u + um> has been a fascinating word to study with students, as the double <u> has always given them pause. As a Dyslexic, I have a CONSTANT urge to double the <c> instead of the <u> for whatever ridiculous, non-morphological reason. We see that this word is so fabulously linked with close siblings of <vacuole>, <vacuous>, <evacuate>, <vacate> and <vacation>. Farther out in the family, we see <vain>, <vanish>, <void> and some Germanic cousins of <want> and <wane>. My fourth grader has heard of “waning crescent” so we decide to add a picture of the phases of the moon, focusing on the “leaving” or “vanishing” within the “waning crescent”. I find the word <vaniloquence>, “idle talk” with no substance, “empty words”, and promptly tell my student that this is my new favorite word, for the moment at least. These tend to add up by the end of a week of study.
After our time has vanished, we high-five and head our separate ways. What a meaningful, FULFILLING second study. And wouldn’t you know, my moon tonight is waning. In fact, it has nearly vanished.
