Here We Go Gajabbling

When a 7th grader interrupts a lesson to tell you that a word you’ve just used doesn’t exist, your instinct is to disagree.

“No, fantastical is a word. Punk.”

The bigger problem? Well, I make up words all the time. For example: Shaarkvark-noun-a cross between a shark, and an aardvark. Used in a sentence? "Hear about the shaarkvark that attacked a surfer and then hid itself among a group of traveling gypsies? It used its proboscis like a thief in the night." No one ever argues about the existence of the Shaarkvark, so why argue about "fantastical"?

A way for any teacher to discover dozens of new words is to read spelling mistakes out loud when grading papers! These words will sound, to the human ear, like other words that actually exist, but because these words don’t exist there’s an innate hilarity to the ridiculousness of their pronunciation. In one instance, a student of mine attempted the word "gaugeable" but came up with "gajabble," which I quickly took to be some sort of expletive. "Gajabble! I forgot my lunch money at home!" or simply just "Gajabble!" Go ahead and say it out loud. This whole process is a lot more entertaining than it sounds, and, whatever, you just don't know what you're missing.

But back to fantastical. So, at first I was confident in my decision that, yes, fantastical is a word, but then I thought “Gajabble! What if I’m wrong and he’s right and I’m just the stupid drama teacher that makes up stupid words that sound like they should only be used when referring to unicorns or Sasquatch.” The class must have seen this cross my mind. Maybe I looked confused or afraid of being wrong, or I simply hesitated when I gave my answer, because then they collectively used the Jugulator (Jugulator-noun-a form of attack specifically aimed at the jugular of any individual, though most often used towards drama teachers).

Student: “No, Ms. Silvestri, there is no way in hell that fantastical is a word. You just made that up.”
Teacher: “No, I didn’t, and for being so sassy about this whole thing your homework is to look it up.”

Needless to say, he “forgot” about his homework.
I didn’t.

I walked into my next class with three dictionaries and a printout from dictionary.com.
He walked into class, read all of the definitions to the class out loud, and then, again, for being so rude about this whole thing, I told this fantastically-challenged student to write a paragraph for homework using the word fantastical in every sentence.

Here is what he wrote:
“Drama 7 – Ms. Sylvestri – 4/10/08
I am a fantastical person. Yes, fantastical is a word. I found that out from my drama teacher the hard way. I was not in a fantastical mood the day when I said fantastical wasn’t a word. But, I was wrong...fantastical is a word.”

I like that “finding out the hard way” implies simply “using a dictionary.” Also, it always goes without saying that the teacher is always right. Also, kid spelled my name wrong. Gajabble!

If nothing else comes from this venture into language, this drama class will never forget the word fantastical. And they’ll also learn to never challenge anything I say in class again. Ever.