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Original poster

Would your children know these words?

105 replies

scalt · 04/01/2026 20:08

Following the thread about children not knowing the word "velvet", and they should know what it means from reading books, let's have some fun with words that used to appear in books a lot, but are less often seen now. Would your own children know them? Some of these, I remember looking up when I came across them. Give your own examples too!

Perambulator
The baths (as in "I'm going to the baths").
Field glasses (The Famous Five)
Bosom (Roald Dahl is fond of it)
Splashery (The only place I've seen this is in the Chalet School books)
Crocodile (not the animal; what children do on school trips)
A PT lesson.

OP posts:
mcmuffin22 · 06/01/2026 07:13

Whitesrummer · 05/01/2026 18:30

Which ones do you think are class specific @mcmuffin22?

Splashery as it relates to a room in a boarding school. I can't think many state schools use or used the term.

Whitesrummer · 06/01/2026 10:00

mcmuffin22 · 06/01/2026 07:13

Splashery as it relates to a room in a boarding school. I can't think many state schools use or used the term.

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Hmm, I think that term might be particular to a fictional boarding school (The Chalet School).
People are familiar with the term though reading, not because they’ve attended boarding-school themselves.

mathanxiety · 07/01/2026 03:26

SoapyDrama · 05/01/2026 06:56

Im really intrigued that a child would have come across completing ones toilet which I think is one of the most obscure phrases on the thread but not lavatory. How has that come about?

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I'm pretty sure my DCs would have heard it from me. I might even have pronounced it 'toilette'. Oh the shame...

It's the kind of phrase one of my grandmothers would have used, and I also read a lot, and did so as a child. I might have come across it in an Agatha Christie mystery, in reference to Hercule Poirot.

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Books
runningonberocca · 07/01/2026 08:07

Miranda65 · 04/01/2026 22:47

But the whole point is that if you read books from earlier generations, you learn new words! Either by asking someone, or looking them up (which is easier since the invention of the internet!). I remember first reading "Emma" at about 13, and having to ask what 'valetudinerian' meant re Mr Woodhouse..... but I've never forgotten it since.
I also learnt many German words from the Chalet School books!

And my first encounter with Shakespeare was when the Fossil sisters were rehearsing 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'in "Ballet Shoes".... I loved that book, even though there was so much in it that was outside my experience or understanding.

Please, please keep giving your children books that stretch them.... it will improve their lives no end.

Great post. Can’t agree more! One of the pleasures of reading is to learn about places and times outside of your own experience. I think that this has been lost for many due to scrolling the internet and SM -it seems much harder to settle down to enjoy a good book! Me included. And it really is a narrower life experience without books

Horrace · 07/01/2026 08:31

Mine who is now 19, knew 'Velvet' as I read her the 'Velveteen Rabbit' a lot as a child.
Maybe not the others

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