Learn From Yo Momma!

May 11, 2007 — -- "Yo momma's so lachrymose, she needs a quilt for a Kleenex!"

Are you insulted? To decide, you'd have to know that lachrymose means "sorrowful, inclined to tears" as in "Yo lachrymose momma sheds more tears than the last five minutes of 'Grey's Anatomy.'" Aw snap!

The erudite insult comes from "The Yo Momma Vocabulary Builder." (Erudite, by the way, means extremely learned -- as in "I schooled yo Momma so much, she's erudite.")

I wrote the book along with writer Christopher Schultz and comedian Steve Harwood. Together we head a group we call Classless Education.

The premise behind Classless Education (www.classlesseducation.com) is to use humor to teach, and "The Yo Momma Vocabulary Builder," intended both as a student SAT study aid and a vocabulary builder for adults, is just the first of a planned series of humorous educational books.

Yo momma's so voracious, her blood type is Ragu. Voracious means having a huge appetite for something.

Here's our thinking: There have been studies that show that emotion and memory are linked, which is why people remember traumatic experiences so vividly. We thought making a traumatic education book that rocks readers emotionally while dispensing information was a little much, so we did the next best thing: We used humor, which also helps with memory. I'm sure some scientist could back this up, but for now think about how we can remember every line to "Caddy Shack" but nothing we learned in eighth grade.

From the book:

Yo momma's so ________, she makes a mime look loquacious.

a. garrulous

b. taciturn

c. turgid

d. Harriet Tubman

Answer b. Taciturn means habitually quiet, and loquacious means talkative.

I first used "The Yo Momma Vocabulary Builder" for a workshop in a juvenile detention facility when I worked for a nonprofit organization called Street Poets Inc (www.streetpoetsinc.com). I would read some of the highbrow insults to the juvenile offenders, and ask them what the words meant. Originally intended as a one-time diversion, the exercise proved effective enough to become a staple in my workshops. Guising education in the form of insults made it OK to learn.