History Main / LittleProfessorDialog

* Inverted, straightened, riffed upon, and generally explored in the ''Mad Magazine'' article [[http://www.madcoversite.com/mad158_phd.html "How to Rewrite Your Way to a PHD"]].

* The kids in ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'' with Gretchen being the biggest example.

* Many important characters in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' are around Link's age, which is somewhere around 10-12. Yet, their dialogue ''barely'' differs from that of the adult characters. Exspecially Medli and Tetra are WiseBeyondTheirYears. Played with in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' with Saria, who speaks very sophisticated from time to time as well. She looks like a child, but is probably much OlderThanTheyLook.

* Kyon from ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya ''. The offhand math references, the science, the multi-cultural references, ancient philosophy, history, phonetics. All from a supposedly average High School Student. Top that with how his choice of words and terminology even in casual dialogue, in Japanese, makes him sound like someone in their 50's. [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis Then again he is telling the story in the past tense...]] That, and Kyon is heavily hinted to be much, much smarter than he lets on, occasionally. After all, he ''did'' solve the Remote Island Incident with little help.

* In ''Webcomic/PennyArcade,'' Tycho's niece, Anna or "Annarchy," not only speaks with almost ludicrous SesquipedalianLoquaciousness, apparently taking after her uncle in that regard, but is advanced enough as to be the standby Professor type in [[PennyArcadeAdventures the computer game]]. There is one strip where she speaks somewhat normally, and is immediately chided for it by her uncle.

** In a [=DVD=] extra from the second ''Film/HarryPotter'' film, 12-year-old DanielRadcliffe tells us in an apparently unscripted talking head bit that "Basically, in the first film Harry is very reactive to everything around him, and in the second film he's very proactive."

* "Woke Toddler [[{{Twitter}} Tweets]]" are a social media phenomenon where an adult, attempting to create a FromTheMouthsOfBabes effect, quotes their young child as having a right-on opinion about some political topic. Due to MostWritersAreAdults, these tend to be written in an adult style, making them seem unconvincing (and even if they are convincing, who wants to hear what a toddler thinks about politics?). After a few high-profile Twitter pundits got caught out making up dialogue for their children (or the existence of children in the first place) in 2016, it became common to see parodies taking the implausibility UpToEleven (e.g. "Watching the debates and my 7-day-old embryo said "in accordance with Marxist dialectic, capitalism will sow the seeds of its own destruction.")

This might be because the character is WiseBeyondTheirYears or [[ActingYourIntellectualAge acts their intellectual age]]. See also FromTheMouthsOfBabes and MostWritersAreAdults. Contrast TotallyRadical. The BrainyBaby and TeenGenius are likely to talk this way. {{Subtrope}} of TVGenius.

* The Little Professor speech is considered a sign of [[AspergerSyndrome]]. Even Dr. Hans Asperger, who identified the condition, would playfully refer to his patients who had it as "the little professors".

* The Little Professor speech is considered a sign of [[AspergerSyndrome Asperger's]]. Even Dr. Hans Asperger, who identified the condition, would playfully refer to his patients who had it as "the little professors".

[[caption-width-right:320:Calvin sure doesn't sound like he's 6.]]

* Simba, Uhura's infant son in QuestForGloryII, will do this the first time you talk to him. Attempting to talk to him again will have the hero decide not to, since he's such a show-off.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun: The Lost Age'' by Eoleo, who ''thinks'' like this when you use your Mind Read spell on him... because he's ''not old enough to speak yet''. However, it also gets lampshaded; one of his playmates complains about his "grown-up attitude".

* The Little Professor speech is consider a sign of [[AspergerSyndrome Asperger's]]. Even Dr. Hans Asperger, who identified the condition, would playfully refer to his patients who had it, as "the little professors".

* A Dutch advert for a supermarket chain has science tidbits trading cards or something similar. A cop pulls over these two guys in a car saying "Well you nearly went the speed of light, didn't you?" in comes a kid in the backseat explaining exactly ''how fast'' the speed of light is compared to the vehicle. The officer, flabbergasted, says "I'll let you off this one time." kid replies "I'll do the same, then."

* Inverted, ironically, in [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Wesley Crusher]]; though he's supposed to be a little professor, he sometimes talks like someone ''half'' his age. The first season episode "The Naked Now" has him saying "It was an adult who did it!", for example.
* ''Series/DawsonsCreek'' was forged out of this in the fires of Mt. Doom. It was clever at first...then just annoying.
** This was actually lampshaded in a commercial for reruns on TBS. It went something like, "They act like kids, but they don't talk like kids. Coming up next...Dawson's Creek!"

* On ''Series/{{Bones}}'' Brennan is teaching her young daughter to speak precicely, including using 5 dollar words.

* Children tend to speak using the same vocabulary as the people around them. If they're around people who use scientific terms on a regular basis, there's a good chance they will too.

* Some kids happen to speak that way at times, but usually when their parents tell them to do so, or when they're true prodigies. It's still [[CreepyChild extremely creepy]].

* ''DawsonsCreek'' was forged out of this in the fires of Mt. Doom. It was clever at first...then just annoying.

* Both Frasier and Niles Crane on ''{{Frasier}}'', in flashbacks to when they were kids. Also evident in excerpts of their childhood writing, like journals, essays, etc.
* Henry Dillon from ''ShakeItUp''. He's a 8 year old super genius.

* This trope is one of the many discussed in George Elliot's 19th-century essay, "Literature/SillyNovelsByLadyNovelists".

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Comics]]
* Features heavily in ''ComicBook/PS238'', mostly from children who are WiseBeyondTheirYears such as Zodon, Victor and Tom (Murphy may or may not count. As a child, that is). USA Patriot and American Eagle also do this a lot, though much of what they're saying sounds more like rehearsed talking points than things they've come up with on their own. Most of the kids avert it, however.

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''TheManWithTwoBrains'', when SteveMartin, playing a brain surgeon, hits a woman with his car he turns to the little girl standing nearby and tells her to phone his hospital, giving her explicit medical instructions. She repeats everything back word for word and the dialogue continues as follows:
-->Girl: Sounds like a subdural hematoma to me. \\
Dr. Hfuhruhurr: Oh, it does, does it? Well, it's not your job to diagnose.\\
Girl: But I thought... \\
Dr. Hfuhruhurr: You thought, you thought. Just go. Three years of nursery school and you think you know it all. Well, you're still wet behind the ears. It's not a subdural hematoma. It's ''epidural''. ''Ha''.
* This was featured heavily in ''Film/TheWizard'', where all the kids talk like drug dealers and the adults talk like, well, kids.
* The little girl at the end of ''Film/SpiderMan3'' haggled like a professional adult and managed to con a fully grown man.
* Henry talked like this in ''Film/TheGoodSon''.
* North and Winchell from ''Film/{{North}}''. But then again, the entire point of North is that the bulk of the movie is a hallucination being experienced by a bigoted [[CreatorsPet so-called child prodigy]] with an overinflated sense of his own importance, so maybe that's not so surprising.
* In ''Film/AnnieHall'' Alvy Singer remembers his child self getting in trouble for kissing one of his classmates. When he defends himself as just exhibiting natural curiosity, the little girl says, "For God's sake, Alvy, even [[UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud Freud]] spoke of a latency period."

* {{Averted}} in ''Literature/EndersGame''. Although the children are all child prodigies who are perfectly capable of speaking like this should they choose, among themselves they speak in a multilingual pidgin slang made up of some of the ''least'' professorial vocabulary available.

* Lampshaded in ''Discworld/TheWeeFreeMen''.
-->"Zoology, eh? That's a big word, isn't it."
-->"No, actually it isn't," said Tiffany. "[[StealthInsult Patronizing is a big word.]] Zoology is really quite short."
** The Achings only own so many books, and one of them is a dictionary. Also humorously subverted in that Tiffany doesn't know how to pronounce some of the longer or more unusual words. Which is typical of children who learn words from reading books instead of from hearing them.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' arguably pioneered this trope, between Charlie Brown's expositions on his anxieties, Linus quoting various authors & philosophers, and of course Lucy and her "Psychiatric Help" booth.
* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' featured allegedly six-year-old Calvin, who didn't talk like any six-, or even twelve-, year-old that most of us have ever met. Bill Watterson sometimes {{lampshade|Hanging}}d this by having Calvin follow up a spate of LittleProfessorDialog with a more typical six-year-old reaction.
** The whole joke of about one third of the strips is Calvin expressing a stupid idea natural to a six-year-old with the language of an adult. For example, when he justifies spending an afternoon collecting frogs by saying: "I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul."
* In ''ComicStrip/NonSequitur'', Danae embodies this trope to a tee, but with an alarmingly good justification. She largely bases her assumptions on what is acceptable social behavior by watching politicians and pundits on television. When she emulates them, she'll use the words pretty much the same way they do -- to make a bizarre political point. In spite of the fact that she only uses very basic mimicry to develop her points, she is still able to gain think-tank funding and cable news time because her arguments end up indistinguishable from legitimate pundits -- even though her thesis is usually something ridiculous like "boys are boogerbrains".
* In fact, pretty much any newspaper comic where a kid character is supposed to represent some element of the adult world is an example of this:
** The Argentinian comic strip ''{{Mafalda}}'' was published and set during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar and revolved around the titular character, a little girl (5 years old at the start of the comic, though she aged in real time) who was deeply concerned about humanity and world peace, and would comment at length about the geo-political situation at the time. Her friends, while not concerned about politics, would also frequently talk like adults. However, Mafalda was the most extreme case and often lampshaded at times, such as her parents occasionally telling her to worry about things "her own age" and her friends occasionally tiring of her musing.
* A ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' comic portrayed the title character as a child trying to get permission to skateboard near a construction site. When his mom brought up the JumpOffABridgeRebuttal, he replied "Well, that would depend on many factors, including height, training, and equipment. But if 100% of the people who jumped off cliffs said they enjoyed it, as in my skateboard example, then I would conclude that it was safe. A better question might have been, 'If everyone wore clothes, would you do that?'" RuleOfFunny, of course.
* ''ComicStrip/{{Frazz}}'' regularly employs 5-9 year old students more intelligent than most adults. The other main character aside from Frazz himself, the irresistable Caulfield, plays a bored genius who has read more books in a month than most adults do a year and spouts observations about life and culture like nobody's business. Every other student Frazz gets to know likewise seem to carry inexplicable wisdom that, if only put into the hands of their administrators, would probably fix many of America's public education problems.
* Ernesto in ''CulDeSac'' looks like a pint-size Latino John Hodgman, and it carries over into the way he talks.
** Alice and the other preschool children aren't always this advanced, but their vocabularies and speech patterns are pretty elaborate for their age. They can play this trope totally straight as well, such as when Alice describes one of her paintings as "post-expressionistic imagery of power, innocence, and repression."
* ''TheBrilliantMindOfEdisonLee'' is about a six-year-old who fancies himself a scientist. ''Of course'' it plays this trope straight. Sometimes it reads like [[SerialNumbersFiledOff they're trying, and failing, to recapture the popularity of Calvin And Hobbes]].

[[folder:Other]]
* The ''ComicBook/ChickTracts'' occasionally slip into this with his, with small children (surely no more than eight years old) knowing ''waaaaay'' too much about the Bible. And actively ''[[EasyEvangelism preaching]]''. It is true that kids from religious homes will probably have some Biblical knowledge, but they're much more likely to say something along the lines of "Jesus is my friend!" in everyday conversation than "The substitutional atonement doctrine explains why the incarnation of Christ was necessary for mankind's redemption."
* This trope is one of the many discussed in George Elliot's 19th-century essay, "Literature/SillyNovelsByLadyNovelists".

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Pearl of ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' is surprisingly deductive, logical, and aware of the consequences of many things legal and moral, often seen giving advice and added perspective to Phoenix Wright when in a serious moment. Sure, she is the coddled daughter of a {{Chessmaster}}, and a spiritual prodigy, but the girl is only ''nine''. Then again, her favorite TV show is ''Kid's Masterpiece Theatre''. In Japanese, she also has an impressive grasp on the complicated system of honorific/humble language. The last case in the Phoenix trilogy, however, has as a plot point that while she talks above her grade level, she's not too hot at ''reading'' yet. (In the Japanese version, she can't fully understand kanji; in the English version, she was a poor reader as well, but the phrases in question were in English: [[spoiler: Gravely roast -> roast's gravy]].)
* Many important characters in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' are around Link's age, which is somewhere around 10-12. Yet, their dialogue ''barely'' differs from that of the adult characters. Exspecially Medli and Tetra are WiseBeyondTheirYears. Played with in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' with Saria, who speaks very sophisticated from time to time as well. She looks like a child, but is probably much OlderThanTheyLook.
* Played with in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun: The Lost Age'' by Eoleo, who ''thinks'' like this when you use your Mind Read spell on him... because he's ''not old enough to speak yet''. However, it also gets lampshaded; one of his playmates complains about his "grown-up attitude".
** Given a CallBack in ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'' when it's used to hand-wave a grown-up Eoleo's [[NoInfantileAmnesia ability to remember incidents from TLA]].
* Simba, Uhura's infant son in QuestForGloryII, will do this the first time you talk to him. Attempting to talk to him again will have the hero decide not to, since he's such a show-off.

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* In ''Webcomic/PennyArcade,'' Tycho's niece, Anna or "Annarchy," not only speaks with almost ludicrous SesquipedalianLoquaciousness, apparently taking after her uncle in that regard, but is advanced enough as to be the standby Professor type in [[PennyArcadeAdventures the computer game]]. There is one strip where she speaks somewhat normally, and is immediately chided for it by her uncle.
** Also, she beat the original Famicom versions of ''Franchise/FinalFantasy [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyI 1]][[VideoGame/FinalFantasyII -]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII 3]]''. In Japanese.
* Several ''{{Webcomic/Homestuck}}'' characters speak like this. Rose is probably the worst offender, being a thirteen-year-old human girl who talks like Creator/HPLovecraft. Karkat and Kanaya talk in a [[CallARabbitASmeerp garbled]] (and in Karkat's case, [[ClusterFBomb sweary]]) version of this kind of speech.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Original]]
* [[WhateleyUniverse Whateley Academy]] is supposed to be a high school for mutants, with most of its students indeed belonging to the right age group because mutations generally manifest during puberty. You wouldn't believe it from listening in to most of their conversations, though. (In some cases it's justified -- some of these kids ''were'' already highly educated before they arrived and/or have superhuman mental faculties --, but it's too universal a phenomenon to be explained by that alone.)
* The protagonists of ''Literature/{{Twig}}'' are a group of eleven and twelve year olds, but they speak using advanced terminology, mimicking the environment and time they were raised in (an AlternateHistory early twentieth century, in a lab environment). However, they'll often insert more childlike phrases into their dialogue with one another.
[[/folder]]

* Penny from ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'' used semi-big words like "infiltrate" and such, but that's not too bad. What did stick out, however, was something she said in an episode where MAD was trying to turn metal into gold: "If MAD can turn metal into gold, they'll undermine the world economy!" Wow! For someone who's not even in middle school, she's able to understand a concept that most don't learn -- or even understand -- until high school! Then again, her uncle is a cyborg and she runs around with a laptop before laptops even existed, and no explanation of why is ever given. Penny might just be really, ''really'' smart.
* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' had a kid who said that he wanted a role model "that I can look up to emulate." Seeking a role model, and using a word like "emulate"? Not nearly as bad as Arnold telling a marketing man that he "saturated the market" with too much of his product. How old are these kids? Fourth grade.

* This was pretty much the whole gag behind ''WesternAnimation/HomeMovies''.
* One time, okay, one time Randy Beaman said the kid in ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' was a subversion and I said he wasn't he was an aversion and Randy Beaman said I should put him in anyway and I did. 'Kay, bye.
** All three of the Warners have pulled it at some point, [[RuleOfFunny if only for a gag]].

* The ten-year-old GreenLantern from ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' spoke like this. He was ''a ten-year-old Green Lantern,'' and is also the Dalai Lama.
** Speaking of ten-year-old Green Lanterns, averted in the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'' episode "Kid Stuff'', where John Stewart, Franchise/{{Superman}}, Franchise/{{Batman}}, and Franchise/WonderWoman are turned into kids to save the day after adults are banished from the Earth. Although this would have been a JustifiedTrope had they done it, it was [[RuleOfCool much more]] [[RuleOfFunny entertaining]] to see the superheroes acting like kids, rather than just cuter versions of themselves. Except for Batman who adheres to this trope religiously, which gets a LampshadeHanging. A [[TearJerker rather poignant one]], at that.

* Twilight Sparkle from ''MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' sometimes lapses into this trope. Although she's not exactly a kid.
-->'''Twilight Sparkle''':(dictating a letter to Spike) We are on the precipice of disaster.
-->'''Spike''': (unsure of spelling) Hold on. Preci- . . . preci- . . .
-->'''Twilight Sparkle''': Threshold.
-->'''Spike''': Ehhh . . .
-->'''Twilight Sparkle''': Er, brink?
-->'''Spike''': [[RuleOfThree (blank stare)]]
-->'''Twilight Sparkle''': (grunts in frustration) That something really ''bad'' is about to happen!

* ''WesternAnimation/JimmyNeutron''. Admittedly he tones it down a lot of the time, but sometimes he just can't help it.

* Tom on ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingChanAndTheChanClan''.

Kids that speak by throwing around big words that you'd usually find in scientific journals or old English texts. This is either an indicator of the kid being a prodigy or trying to simply sound like one. Often combined with SesquipedalianLoquaciousness.

This might be because the character is WiseBeyondTheirYears or [[ActingYourIntellectualAge acts their intellectual age]]. See also FromTheMouthsOfBabes and MostWritersAreAdults. Contrast TotallyRadical.

* All of the kids in ''EndersGame'' are ostensibly precocious child prodigy geniuses, making this less unlikely than it would seem.

* Several ''{{Homestuck}}'' characters speak like this. Rose is probably the worst offender, being a thirteen-year-old human girl who talks like Creator/HPLovecraft. Karkat and Kanaya talk in a [[CallARabbitASmeerp garbled]] (and in Karkat's case, [[ClusterFBomb sweary]]) version of this kind of speech.