Trying to Find the Word

I belong to the generation of educators who regularly receives/received "teacher jewelry" as gifts from students and families, which I described in a blog post from way back in 2007 over at Kindergarten's 3 Rs.

Hallmark was the main source of many of the holiday-themed items, though a lot of handmade pieces full of "country charm" made their way into my collection too.  I eventually whittled the mountain of accessories down to a manageable size of favorite keepsakes, and even my wardrobe of embroidered denim jumpers also went the way of all good things probably ten or more years after they had been deemed out of fashion.

For the past month, my Halloween, autumn, reading and Thanksgiving-themed jewelry has been dusted off and worn to work in the library.  And my students have no idea what to call this particular style of accessory:

The dimensional and glitzy turkey (a Kirks Folly piece likely considered vintage now) really had them trying to find the right word as they praised me for wearing it.

"Mrs. Sommerville, I really like your uh, uh, uhhhhhhhh... logo!"

"That's a cool... a cool... stamp?"

"Wow, I like the sparkles on your turkey icon!"

"I didn't know that badges could be made to look like animals!"

"That's a really fancy turkey... sticker, Mrs. Sommerville."

"Well, what is that? ' Cause it looks like a tie-tack thing that my dad wears to church, but he doesn't have a turkey one."

The only word they didn't use to name it was "button."

I made sure to take it off to show students the pinback mechanism to see if it might help them identify it, but only a few then modified their name for it to a "pin."  And then I explained that I have many brooches or pins that I've collected over the years. We'll see if they remember "brooch" as my winter trees, snowflakes, and snowmen start to appear on my sweater lapels in December and January, followed by rhinestone hearts in February.