We’ve all been there before. You’re talking to a friend’s younger sibling or at your job working with kids when that awkward moment hits: you realize they’re still in elementary school and haven’t even begun to think about taking grade seven vocabulary-building exercises. Here are six embarrassing situations that only people who read at at least a seventh grade level can relate to.
1. When you say you really “abated” a situation earlier that day, but the child you’re talking to doesn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.
2. Your jokes about how practicing an “orthodox” religion means you’re basically calling it in early life-wise don’t land because they don’t even know what orthodox means.
3. When you pay respects to the recent Evil Dead, saying how you appreciated that it was more of an “homage” than a complete reboot, but the 11-year-old still doesn’t know what you’re referring to.
4. You make a mental note to avoid using the word “nomadic” because none of the grade six kids ever know what you’re talking about.
5. Whenever you find a conversation with a child to be particularly “stodgy” — a reference they don’t quite understand, but should be able to after they complete their next year of schooling.
6. You have to forgo saying “robust” as often as you’d like, due to it being a word that not everyone has learned yet.
