I almost had to repeat kindergarten because I procrastinated on learning to read. Faced with this threat, I hit the books, and by the end of the year I had achieved a 5th grade reading level. I credit Bill Watterson and Gary Larson for this; I remember sitting in my dad’s apartment at ages six and seven, each of us curled up with one of his Calvin & Hobbes or The Far Side volumes. While he savored the pages, I soldiered through the multisyllabic speech bubbles, pausing every now and then to ask things like, “Daddy, what does ‘hypothetical’ mean?”
Here are just a few of the words that should obviously be in every 6-year-old’s vocabulary:
1. Spelunking
See also: onomatopoeia
Source: Author’s Own
2. Repartee
Ain’t no partee like a repartee!
Source: Author’s Own
3. Peripatetic
SPEAKING OF REPARTEE, this insult, though!
Also, their expressions in panel three: perfection.
Source: Biblioklept
4. Vicarious
Some jokes just didn’t click until I grew up, but at least I learned like nine SAT words from this strip.
Source: Reddit
5. Magnanimous
The more election years I live through, the more painfully funny these are.
Source: Author’s Own
6. Dialectical Metaphysics
For all the times Calvin was a pain in his dad’s butt; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Source: Author’s Own
7. Cummerbund
Hobbes is a gentleman and a scholar.
Source: GoComics
8. Deferential
Moreover, he’s a gentleman who knows that being “cool” is overrated.
Source: Author’s Own
9. Protozoan
Biology words all up in these panels.
Source: Daily Calvin & Hobbes
10. Avant-garde
“Dad, what does avant-garde mean?”
“It’s… I don’t know, Rebecca. It’s French. It’s some kind of art word.”
Dad’s an engineer.
Source: Gocomics
11. Conniptions
I’ve never noticed this word in anything else, and it’s too bad.
Source: Author’s Own
12. Pandemonium
Miss Wormwood struck me as a mean teacher when I was in first grade. Now, not only do I feel for her, I think she’s earned sainthood.
Source: Author’s Own
13. Salubrious
Hobbes is the Hermione to Calvin’s Ron.
Source: Author’s Own
14. Arboreal
“Fiend” was another one I asked about, as it shows up in pretty much every Spaceman Spiff strip.
Source: Author’s Own
15. Behemoth
Before it was a metal band, it was Calvin.
Source: Author’s Own
16. Predicament
This is a frequently used word with Calvin, made funnier when you grow up and realize he’s imagining it most of the time. Hey, there’s got to be a silver lining to growing up.
Source: Author’s Own
17. Panache
Panache sounds delicious, but once again it’s just Hobbes being a gentleman.
Source: Author’s Own
18. Somnambulist
“Dad, what’s… (Points at word)”
“Sleepwalker.”
“Why didn’t he just say that?”
“I don’t know.”
I glared at the unnecessarily long, Latinate word for a long, bitter moment.
Source: Author’s Own
19. Transcendental
The sugar high may be a placebo effect, but placebos, after all, are effective.
Source: Author’s Own
20. Annihilation
Calvin’s mom must be proud. Exhausted, but proud.
Source: Author’s Own
21. Anatomically Correct
My dad didn’t explain this to me. Twenty years later, LOL.
Source: Pinterest
22. Potentate
Spaceman Spiff also introduced me to the concepts of technobabble and aptronyms.
Source: Calvin & Hobbes Wiki
23. Aspersions
See also: #burn
Source: GoComics
It’s hard to believe I read these at such a young age, let alone understood them, but who could be more relatable to a little kid than Calvin, Hobbes, and Susie? Context clues are everything. It also doesn’t hurt to have Dictionary Dad standing by.
Two decades and one English degree later, thanks, Dad. Your re-election campaign is looking solid.
YouTube Channel: Rafael Casal
Featured image via The Wall Street Journal
