To be shocked that not even one y4 child knew the meaning of the word velvet?

[Utterlybananas333]

My sister is a teacher in a South London primary school, she is a year four teacher of around 30 8 to 9-year-olds. She was recently describing her disbelief over the fact that not a single child knew what velvet meant? There were some crazy guesses, and lots of children who thought it was cake (probably relating to red velvet). Is it just the fact that children and adults don't talk anymore? That nobody reads anymore? Or even watches educational TV programs? Would your child know?

It's one word. It's not useful to draw conclusions based on one word.

The only time anyone wears velvet would most likely be Christmas & new years. So yes it’s understandable. Language moves on and evolves. There are many words we use that people 50 years ago wouldn’t know.

it’s evolution not stupidity

Cavalry twill has a ribbed effect.

My Y3 8yo is in bed but I'm going to ask her in the morning.

I asked my 12yo who happened to be on headset with another 12yo and they very much know what velvet is and were surprised by the question.

That's not what I'm talking about

Gosh. My DS has a red velvet Christmas dress. I got rid of my velvet dress but most people I know wear it at Christmas.

Well what are you talking about?

I asked my 8yr olds and one knew what it was, but maybe it is shocking. Still think it’s an increasingly niche word though.

Agreed. Different colours and different flavours. I don’t like swedes but love turnip.

It is used widely in a descriptive sense ..
I am LITERALLY looking at a book now about animals that says moles have a velvety feel

What shocks me is velvet made from artificial fibres. That will never be velvet to me.

And I see your different textiles and raise you Barathea

The fact that people are making the point that if a child hasn't got a velvet item, they will not know the word
This makes no logical sense at all in the context of conversation and reading

😂😂

But the point is about how broadly the word is used in general conversation and how useful it is in expressing ideas that the child finds valuable.

For a child who has little interest in describing fabric and has not come across velvet in real life, it's not of huge relevance. Even if they do see it in a book, it's less likely to stick.

My 6 year old has several velvet dresses she wears - especially this time of year. She would know exactly what it was.

I agree 😂😂😂

Barathea. 100 years ago l was a designer. The factory l worked in used to make traffic warden coats out of barathea. It always made me sneeze.

Barathea is a nice fabric. No one knows what wynciette is anymore.

Love fabrics and names. Moufflant, moleskin, tissue taffeta, dupion, dobby, swiss, organdie.

Good lord

It is widely used as a sensory descriptor. There's patches of it in those fucking that's not my cat it's too fluffy books
It's not bloody unicorn skin

Who has a velvet bed? Austin Powers?!

My 9yr old son knows and English isn’t his first or school language.

But he devours audio books and knows quite a lot about history.

I'm not shocked.

"Velvet" is a less common day to day word than it was but it's also true that children are exposed to less language than in generations past.

It isn't just that reading for pleasure is becoming a thing of a past, but people speak less.

Studies are only starting to emerge on the extent of the decline, but we do have one from the Uni or Arizona which suggests around a 20% drop in the number of words spoken by adults, per day, between 2005 and 2025 (I bet it would be an even bigger drop if you reached further back than 2005).

Children from "chattier" homes have always had wider vocabularies, and technology is increasingly replacing direct human interaction.

My children weren't particularly into those kind of books, tbf

I don’t think it’s particularly fair for a generation to judge the known vocab range of the generation below it. The English language grows far more rapidly than it shrinks. English gains several thousand new words per year, and only a small fraction become truly obsolete in the same time frame.

The generation below you is literally exposed to far many more words than you are, and will likely know many words that you will not.

That’s stuff in baby books is micro fleece not velvet ( textile nerd here😁)

😂