Word Girl

I know I'm biased, but I think Mabel is pretty witty for a four-year-old. She has always enjoyed words and sought out the big ones, but nowadays she finds rhymes and double meanings and asks why things are called what they are and why they aren't called something else.

If she doesn't become a lawyer (given her love of argument and her pathological need to have the last word) or an actress (given her flair for the dramatic and love of storytelling) or an author (obviously), she'll be a linguist or an etymologist. She might be all of those things.

She employs puns to their fullest:

• Watching DangerMouse - DM and Penfold land on top of the Toad and announce, "You're under arrest."
  Mabel: He is, because he's lying down so he's resting, and he's under them!

• Me, starting the car again after a quick return home for something it turned out we hadn't actually left behind: "To the pool, take two."
  Mabel: "But you're taking three."

She toys with idioms:

• The day after we saw our friend and her new(ish) baby: "I remember meeting Baby V like it was yesterday."

She plays with homonyms:

• "Can you compare a pear?"

She finds words within words:

• Europe! That's like syrup! Do they eat syrup in Europe? And watch the movie Up? 

She knowingly amuses me with hyperbole:

• In a grump, casting around for things to hate: "I don't like Miss P's bike. I don't like the colour of your glasses. I don't like the shape of our car. ... I don't like the colour of seethrough."

And now she's working the similes:

• "It's as dark as a bedroom."

or, to insult my cooking

• "It's as yummy as bum." 

Possibly a little yummier than bum