The power of nonsense

“It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.” –Dr Suess

Since the age of four, I’ve been obsessed with nonsense – that delicious way of subverting the rules of language and treating it like a playground. Growing up, I was fortunate to know several fun-loving adults who taught me that made-up words and hyperbole were a portal to imagined worlds.

I carried this joyful fascination into my teaching career, but quickly found that language was (and still is) mired in a world of being right, and a headlong rush and push through phonics. The simple joy of playing with words gets lost and abandoned somewhere in these processes, trapped in a bell jar of literacy, flashcards, and the drudgery of Book Band books.

Is this joylessness really what childhood wants? Is this how we want to present words and language to children? Do children really want to live in a world of stuffy over-seriousness, having to prove value through the acquisition of facts and knowledge?

My answer to these questions is a resounding “no.” I want children to unearth the joy of words and to respond to them emotionally, as though language is a companion holding hands with them. Children need to feel, and through feeling comes the desire to know more. Feeling is the beginning of authentic learning.

But why is it so important to bring a world of nonsense to children?

Educators Walter F. Drew and Baji Rankin, in their researched study “Promoting creativity for life using open-ended materials,” perhaps offer an answer:

“Language is the most plastic material with which children interact on a daily basis, (plastic in the sense of capable of being moulded). And, just as a child may use any toy according to its designed purpose, or employ it for an entirely different purpose, so a child may choose to use the rich resources of language for purposes other than conventional sense-making.”

Children see language as a playground, open to exploration, adaptation, and manipulation. To quote Drew and Rankin further, “The more children use open-ended materials, the more they make them aesthetically pleasing by fiddling, sorting, and ordering, the more they see the potential in the materials and in themselves.”

Language demands to be reshaped, and childhood instinctively answers this call. Why? Because children are naturally gifted at inventing and reinventing. By introducing nonsense into the realm of childhood, we present it as a fresh material for experimentation. Language transforms into a tool for play and discovery.

Language is often presented as a mountain to overcome, with all its grammar and rules and spelling tests. In taking the rules of language and rejecting ‘what should be’, and in liberating language from the claustrophobia of literacy, we show children that language is more like a river. We step into a river and feel its flow; its destination is not predetermined, but able to be channelled in any direction at will. Let’s show children that language can become a creative tool.

Through subversion comes creativity, exactly what childhood truly wants. And this is why nonsense is so important, so critical, to children. It allows them to be who they are, inventors or explorers, forging an emotional connection to language so that they are fascinated by its endless possibilities.

Some of the ways I share my delight in nonsense with children include:

Introducing the unexpected

I sing known nursery rhymes but replace a few key words with made-up ones. This nonsensicality shows children our human power to imagine beyond what is expected.

Creating opportunities for imagination

Within the flow of cooperative play, I discuss with the children that we might have ridiculous superpowers: “We can run at a billion miles an hour, we can eat a mountain of fried grapes, we are able to jump over the moon!”

These hyperboles show children that our imaginations are limitless. We liberate them from the constraints of literacy. Imagination lies all around us and can be discovered in the flow of language.

Experimenting with nonsensical language

I add nonsensical sound effects to our play together. For example, when rolling marbles down a ramp into bowl, I say “hudda-dudda!” When the marbles land in the bowl, I say “kerplang!” This may sound silly, but it adds to the delight of children experimenting with their own nonsense words, and it matches what is happening at the moment. We begin to feel the weight and resonance of language merely by being nonsensical with it.

I find myself spending a lot of my time across a day with children immersed in a landscape of language. We delight in the way words sound, stretching credibility and inventing our own unique phrases. It is here that nonsense reveals its most powerful possibility. By showing children that creativity and ‘gentle anarchy’ can be brought to language, we also show them that they are not with us to get things right, or to be controlled to fit certain restrictions.

We show children that we, like them, are experimenters and explorers, that we too find delight and joy in the world. We discover the liberation of becoming companions on an adventure – exactly how language has always wanted us to be.

Drew, W. F., & Rankin, B. (2004). Promoting creativity for life using open-ended materials. Young Children, 59(4), 38-45.

Rieke, A. (1992). The senses of nonsense. Iowa City, IO: University of Iowa Press.

Smeed, J. (2012) ‘Nonsense and Early Childhood’ He Kupu Vol 3, Num 1