Adam Walton: Red faces at first fruits of honesty.

Byline: Adam Walton

WORDS are dangerous. If Adam and Eve had been struck dumb as a punishment for succumbing to temptation in the Garden of Eden, the modern world would be a much safer place. Those seemingly innocuous groupings of letters -- some long, some short; some mellifluous, some harder on the ear than a new series of Pop Idol -- have the destructive potential, when arranged just so, to match any stick or stone. No wonder monks -- the most peaceful and spiritual of men -- take a vow of silence; it's the one way guaranteed to prevent a rumpus at the friary.

But it's not really the physical damage that words can do that you're concerned about as the parent of a toddler struggling to come to terms with such nebulous concepts as meaning, syntax and context. It's the embarrassment potential.

Some books espouse that would-be parents struggle about their day-to-day routine with a heavy bag of flour, to give them some idea of the physical burden and responsibility.

I espouse that anyone about to endure having a gatling-gun toddler whose ammunition is words fired randomly at the most inopportune moments, should wander around for a week with their underwear protruding from their over-clothes, or an Everton top on. Only such drastic actions will prepare you for the shame that will, inevitably, shoot out of your child's mouth.

I blame Will. Will is a very good friend. He has two sons, George, six, and Frank, who was born on the same day as my daughter, Ava. They're great kids, but in the golden days of freedom before Ava was born, when Will was full of the joys of being a father for the first time, he inadvertently planted some seeds in my mind, the volatile fruit of which I am, only now, harvesting.

You see, Will's eldest son, George, is a bit of a prodigy. . . not a bit of the Prodigy; although judging by his advanced mental faculties, he probably could knock out an album of gnarly dance music in his lunch break at school. Behind Will's back, we called George ``Georgegenius''.

In that way you can only appreciate when you've got kids of your own, Will would regale me with stories of George's burgeoning intellect, one of which I remembered before my face fell into my Guinness.

``George is amazing for his age, you know, '' said Will. I adopted the glassy stare I reserved for other people waffling on about their children, and tried to remember the fingerings for diminished minor chords, but Will broke through my defences. ``When a bird lands in our back garden, he doesn't just say, `Look, daddy, a birdie!', he says, `How unusual for this time of year, father, a brambling, Latin name Fringilla montifringilla, average clutch size 5--7 eggs. .

He was only two at the time! This story festered in my mind all of the time that the wife was pregnant, and burst forth at the instant of Ava's birth. From that moment, it was game on. I became a walking thesaurus. I read her the Concise Oxford English Dictionary every night before bed. . . also known as a cot, cradle, or crib. I woke her every morning at five by tapping on a blackboard. We'd probably manage about five species in a depth of detail that Donald Pleasance's character in The Great Escape would have respected, before I pushed her to college in her perambulator.

What a fool I was! I didn't realise that by expanding her vocabulary in such an irresponsible manner, I was doing the linguistic equivalent of giving her a box of matches and a milk bottle filled with four star!

Matters came to a head last week.

I was having a shower, and Ava was playing in the bathroom so that I could keep an eye on her.

``What's that daddy?'' she asked, pointing at my man stuff as I dried myself.

Now, I believe strongly that you shouldn't talk down to children, and that the human body isn't something to be ashamed of.

``It's a err. . . banana, and two strawberries, '' I exaggerated, Ava looked at me like I was stupid, ``No, it isn't daddy, '' she said, ``What is it?''

She's very persistent, my daughter. This could have gone on all day, so I told her the truth: ``It's a penis and testicles. ''

``Clesticles, '' she repeated, as I hurriedly dried myself and went on line to order some waterproof long-johns.

Fast forward three days. Ava and I are sitting in the very lovely, and hitherto peaceful, restaurant upstairs in Telfords Warehouse, Chester. It's very busy. Some people looked at us in a very British and disapproving way when we sat down, but relaxed when Ava sat and diligently ate her main course. The food was excellent.

Then, my dessert turned up. A fresh fruit salad. . . what a fine way to clean the palate. I chose the juiciest, most succulent strawberry in my bowl, picked it up, and held it poised above my slavering mouth.

``Testicles!'' shouted Ava with glee on her face.

``Sshhh!'' said I, as everyone in the restaurant turned to stare at the pervert father and his poor daughter.

``Testicles! Penis and testicles!'' How can someone so small, be so loud?

I wondered if ramming a napkin into her mouth constituted child abuse.

``TESTICLES!''

``Here, Ava, have a melon!'' I'm scarlet with embarrassment even now, a week later.

The moral of this story is not ``do not have children''. It is ``be careful which words you teach them!''. Oh, and make sure you shower with your undercrackers on!

CAPTION(S):

Strawberries are red. But not as red as the face of a father who tells a toddler all the proper words for things