Pretty

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pretty |ˈpritē|:  adjective ( -tier , -tiest )  attractive in a delicate way without being truly beautiful or handsome. Synonyms: attractive, lovely, good-looking, nice-looking, personable, fetching, prepossessing, appealing, charming, delightful, cute, as pretty as a picture; Scottish bonny; informal easy on the eye; literary beauteous; archaic fair, comely

—Apple Dictionary Application

This is a pretty sunset (picture taken by Cindy). Cindy is a pretty woman, as pretty now as when we shared our first kiss thirty years ago. Nature is resplendent with pretty flowers and animals. It is often said that beauty, what is pretty, is in the eye of the beholder. Each of us has a concept of pretty that we apply to a myriad of things. Pretty as an adjective in the English language is widely used and its meanings widely accepted. But there are three other uses for the word pretty; as a noun, as a verb, and as an adverb, each originating from the same ancient root but given different meanings at different times, so much so that each meaning set stands alone as no longer related to the others. As a noun, a pretty is a rather simple concept to understand; "He gave me a pretty, (an attractive gift)." As a verb, it means making oneself attractive. As an adverb it can mean quite, rather, somewhat, fairly, reasonably, comparatively, relatively to a fairly high degree. Its four incarnations present a problem for non-English speakers—and as an adverb, for me.

My fourth grade teacher was a no nonsense maiden lady who had definite concepts that she wanted (demanded) us to learn. Midway through the year she decided that a class newsletter could be a vehicle for us budding writers of the English language to demonstrate our developing literary skill to our parents. She appointed me editor. Proudly I submitted my first editorial, which she read immediately and then summoned me to an audience. She had circled in red a term that I had used three times in my essay, pretnear. 

"What does this mean?" she demanded.

"It is a contraction," I replied, proud of my correct use of a part of speech we had recently learned, "for pretty nearly."

"Do you mean beautiful nearly, lovely nearly?"

"Ah, no," I replied, intimidated now.

"Know the meaning of the words you use, be precise," and with that I was sent, red-faced and ashamed, back to my desk.

I had no idea that pretnear was a colloquialism, quite common in my little corner of the world, or that pretty was an adverb as well as an adjective, a noun, and a verb. Stripped of my innocence and firmly enlightened by this experience that still haunts me at the age of 79, I cannot use pretty as an adverb when I write, and correct myself when I use it in speech. Such is the power and authority of an early learning experience.

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Train up the child II, The critical first six years

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Several of the developmental psychologists whose articles I cited in my lectures on early childhood development summarized that during their first six years children developed the 'blueprints' that would shape much of their behavior and thought patterns into and through adulthood. These 'blueprints' are developed by two primary methods: modeling and instruction. Adults teach children by precept and example, example being by far the most powerful.

Little children are 'knowledge sinks’; they absorb almost everything in their environment of which they are conscious, even things they do not initially understand. These pieces of knowledge are incorporated into their brains along with motor and language skills, and are just as permanent. As children develop, these basic structures are modified by age and experience but seldom discarded. (One never forgets how to ride a bicycle no matter how many years pass between the initial learning experience in childhood and getting on a bike again after a long hiatus.)

Imitation, it has been said, is the highest form of praise. Toddlers are great mimics, often surprising their observers with their 'adult-like' gestures and as they become more socially adroit, by their speech inflections, gestures, and actions. They learn very quickly and make the assumption as they do that everything they model is right and proper because they as yet have no standards for evaluation. Later when they act out an inappropriate behavior modeled from an adult, are stricken when chastised. They do not understand the clichéd parental admonition, "Do as I say, not as I do!" Everything that a child sees a parent do is fact, little modified by explanation. (How often as an adult have you said or done something that you regretted because you recognized you are sounding or acting like one of your parent's whose behavior you resented or disliked? "I sound just like my father—and I don't want to!" "I am acting just like my mother always did under similar circumstances—and it always angered me!"

We often try to teach (tell) children in this age group right from wrong, good from bad. But these 'lessons' have little relevance unless they are tied to concrete experience. Take for example teaching a child something is hot and therefore not to be touched. In one of my former incarnations, I hosted a social action radio program. During an episode, one of my guests was Russell Means, at that time head of AIM, the American Indian Movement. During a heated discussion with a Catholic nun about the differences in the way Native Americans and the majority of non-natives instructed their children, he used this example. Positing a fire in a fireplace, he said that when a non-native child approached the fire, an object of fascination, the caregiver grabbed the child before it could get too close and sternly told the child that the fire was hot and therefore dangerous. The native caregiver allowed the child to get much closer to the fire realizing that a normal child's reflex to the increasing heat (discomfort) would stop the child before the child could be burned. As the child reacted in fear, the native caregiver comforted the child and delivered the message of hot at the same time. The non-native caregiver frustrated and angered the child by taking it away from the object of its fascination, the 'hot' message having little meaning without the experience. The native child learned to respect the fire, the non-native child learned to resent the caregiver.

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