Can you guess the correct meaning of these words? A vocab lesson from my moony son

Anthony makes great observations. His latest one made me smile. He looked up at the afternoon sky and said "I can see the moon - in the day! It is very bright, yes, it's very moony this afternoon."

I loved this. At first I thought this was a funny way of adding a suffix to a word. I'm pretty sure Anthony had already been taught about adding -ed, -ing and recently -s to words. I thought it was incredibly sweet to add -y to moon to describe the clear afternoon as characterised by the moon. Just like it being cloud-y or sunn-y.

Of course, I was disappointed to learn that more commonly 'moony' actually means something else. I don't think using words oddly is in any way related to Anthony's autism, like other difficulties such as generalising.  This is just part of learning and growing a vocabulary.

When he actually uses the wrong word this is a case of catachresis, the (accidental) application of a term to something which it does not properly denote. Effectively getting the meaning wrong.

Here's a couple of examples of 'misused' words that I found that apply quite well to Anthony.

Anthony has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), so would you say he was very restive?

No? Well if you think restive means peaceful or rested you'd be wrong. In fact Anthony is very restive. It means unable to keep still or silent and becoming increasingly difficult to control.

When he's restive might he be noisome?

Generally no. If you thought it meant being noisy then that would apply to Anthony. He can make a complete racket when he's constantly moving he's only seven and rarely works up a sweat. Maybe when he's older he might be noisome, which actually means to omit an odour, but then I'll just have him run around in the shower for a bit.

And is he enervated?

Yes? Well sometimes, but not if you are thinking it means energised. Enervate means to cause someone to feel drained or weakened. Anthony can actually be enervated. One of things people often get confused about with kids with ADHD is thinking they have piles of energy.  Anthony does, but imagine constantly being forced by your body to be on the go - it can be exhausting when you just can't stop.

And finally moony

As an autistic boy, Anthony sometimes struggles to interact with his the world around him. So, I smiled when I looked up moony online to find that it describes someone as dreamy and unaware of one’s surroundings, for example because they are in love.

A bit like me around my kids sometimes ;-)

This post highlights the #wetalkmakaton sign of the week - "Moon"

This is not sponsored - we just love Makaton, it helps our family communicate