> Is it normal to read books for fun? Is using "big words" acceptable at the dinner table? Is asking questions encouraged?

My wife once taught a kid whose father kept brusquely "correcting" them any time they they used saw, as in the simple past tense of to see, correctly. The father insisted on seen, and not in a "that's how we talk here" way, but in a "that's how you talk period" way. I'm sure that wasn't the only way he was harming (or trying to harm, anyway) his kid's prospects.

Of course they were poor, too. :-(