Plens and plens of open

Genevieve is beginning to read. Marilee reports that Genevieve noticed the Open sign on the local video store. Genevieve spelled it and asked what it said. Marilee asked her what the first two letters sounded like, and Genevieve responded, and then she sounded out the final two letters and put it together by herself and pronounced the word.

One word that Genevieve probably won’t be reading anytime soon is plens. Yes, plens, as in P-L-E-N-S. Pronounce it to sound like the first syllable in “plenty,” except add an “s” at the end. It is probably no mistake that it sounds like plenty, because in Genevieve’s version of English, it is synonymous with “plenty,” but can have alternate usage. An example of simple replacement would be:

ENGLISH – There will be plenty of classmates at the party.
GENEVIEVE – There will be plens of classmates at the party.

Plens more closely replaces contemporary usage of the word “lots.” For example:

ENGLISH – I have lots and lots of crayons in the bag.
GENEVIEVE – I have plens and plens of crayons in the bag.

She is very insistent on the existence of this word, has used it for the past year, and is very consistent in her proper utilization of it as discussed above. I’ve told her that other people may not understand it, and beyond that I don’t comment to her about it. I sort of like it.