Letter drop

Letter drop: verb. The act of mispronouncing a word by young children due to missing letters.

Monkey Son #1 is 4 years old. Although he can hold an intelligent conversation, is very observant, and can explain things that most adults don't know, he still has trouble with certain words and letter sounds.

Being a young child, he sometimes plays a little rough or is downright mean to Monkey Son #2 (11 months old), which brings on the inevitable comment from Mommy, "You're being a brat." Notice that the comment was on his behavior, not him as a person.

Ever heard the expression, "Monkey see, monkey do?" Well, guess what happened. Brat has become his new favorite word, except that he's missing a letter. So the conversations go something like this:

Mommy: Stop throwing that ball in the house.

bounce, bounce, bounce, throw, bounce, bounce

Mommy: I told you to stop throwing that, now stop.

bounce, bounce, throw, bounce

Mommy: That's it, give it to me.

Monkey Son #1: No!

Mommy takes ball.

Monkey Son #1: You're a rat!

Mommy: I think you mean brat, but no.

He uses this word about once a day, which is odd, seeing as I use the word pretty sparingly.