Sunday, November 28, 2010

Term of Endearment

Early on my teaching career, I observed that the bulk of my young Hispanic middle-school students, when asked, "What do you think of the test?", responded in a peculiar way. 

They tilted their heads to the side, squinted their eyes, pouted their lips, showed me a rocking hand, and said, "mas o menos." More or less. 

Well, all these English language-challenged kids just wanted me to understand was that the test wasn't easy, and at the same time, it wasn't hard.

Light bulb! Got me an idea to coin a word!

If it's not easy, facil, but at the same time, it's not hard, deficil, then it's...

DEFACIL!     :D

After almost two decades, I still use the word, and each time I did, I saw grins.

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