History Main / LittleProfessorDialog

* Pre-TeenGenius ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' uses this extensively. ''The Eternity Code'' sees him scare the wits out of an ordinary waitress with his adult (and ultra-sophisticated) behavior, and in ''The Time Paradox'' it gets put into perspective when we realize that the "present" Artemis is actually a lot better at acting his age than he was when he was 10. It is tempting to blame ParentalAbandonment for this, but ''The Time Paradox'' ''also'' revealed that he was acting -- and speaking -- like that even before his father went missing.Though he still thinks like a kid in some ways; in the first book, Holly says something sarcastic about lollipops as she's making her escape, and Artemis' first two thoughts are, in order, that he doesn't like lollipops, and that using the word "lollipop" is beneath the dignity of his intellect. Which, of course, leads one to the question of how he plans to patronize children himself when he grows up.

* Played for laughs in ''Literature/ASpyInTheNeighborhood'' with smart preteen Paul, who goes into too much detail about mundane things in an almost stereotypically Asperger's-like fashion.
* Taken to ridiculous extremes in William D. Hayes' ''Project: Genius''. Basically, the main character discovers while doing homework that reading the dictionary to his infant brother puts the kid to sleep (especially the "S" section). Later on, he decides to convince a local TV station to broadcast a new show using his brother as the "typical baby" for a school project. Shortly before airtime, he points at his brother and tells him to say "Da" and the then ''eleven-month-old'' kid says "Pusillanimous."
* Played with in Creator/JudyBlume's ''Literature/{{Fudge}}'' series - after spending the entire book misusing or mispronouncing words and expressions he picks up from his brother and parents, he finally figures out how to use them correctly just in time to say them to a visiting author/artist at his school, making him seem very precocious.
* Creator/GeorgeEliot, in ''Literature/SillyNovelsByLadyNovelists'', cites the frequent appearance of this as an example of how these novelists can't represent life.
* Music/ToriAmos's supposedly autobiographical book ''Piece by Piece'' has extensive scenes where a single-digit-aged Tori delivers [[AuthorFilibuster paragraphs of neopagan philosophy]] to her parents and authority figures that there is no way the young Tori would even have known about, let alone been able to express.

* 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.

* Another Pre-TeenGenius, ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'', uses this extensively as well. ''The Eternity Code'' sees him scare the wits out of an ordinary waitress with his adult (and ultra-sophisticated) behavior, and in ''The Time Paradox'' it gets put into perspective when we realize that the "present" Artemis is actually a lot better at acting his age than he was when he was 10. It is tempting to blame ParentalAbandonment for this, but ''The Time Paradox'' ''also'' revealed that he was acting -- and speaking -- like that even before his father went missing.Though he still thinks like a kid in some ways; in the first book, Holly says something sarcastic about lollipops as she's making her escape, and Artemis' first two thoughts are, in order, that he doesn't like lollipops, and that using the word "lollipop" is beneath the dignity of his intellect. Which, of course, leads one to the question of how he plans to patronize children himself when he grows up.

* 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, who 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/GoldenSunTheLostAge'' 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". This is 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]].

* ''Discworld/TheWeeFreeMen'': 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. Lampshaded:

* The children in ''VideoGame/{{Kindergarten}}'' and [[VideoGame/Kindergarten2 its sequel]] often use words and phrases you wouldn't expect kindergarteners to know, such as "neanderthal", "naive", and "probable cause". Of course, considering the children's [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior other characteristics]], this isn't that surprising.

* 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.

* The children in ''VideoGame/{{Kindergarten}} and [[VideoGame/Kindergarten2 its sequel]] often use words and phrases you wouldn't expect kindergarteners to know, such as "neanderthal", "naive", and "probable cause". Of course, considering the children's [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior other characteristics]], this isn't that surprising.

* The ten-year-old GreenLantern from ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' speaks like this. He is ''a ten-year-old Green Lantern'' -- and is also the Dalai Lama.

* Harumi / Pearl of ''Gyakuten Saiban'' / ''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 Ryuichi Naruhodo / 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 original 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]].)
** There's also Cody Hackins in the first game, a second grade fan of the ''Steel Samurai'' kids show who happened to witness the crime. When Phoenix tries to coax some information out of him by giving him his own trading card, the following exchange occurs:
--->'''Cody''': But that's my card! By offering me something I already own, you're in effect eschewing the very basis of our consumer society, namely the principle of fair trade! Man, for a grown-up, you sure are dumb!\\
'''Phoenix''': [[LampshadeHanging (W-what do they teach these kids in school these days!? Quantum physics!?)]]
* 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 who 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/GoldenSunTheLostAge'' 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]].

* Henry Dillon from ''Series/ShakeItUp''. He's a 8 year old super genius.

* And then there's Series/YoungSheldon. Which has the nine-year-old [[Series/TheBigBangTheory Doctor Sheldon Cooper]] in it.

* And then there's Series/YoungSheldon. Which has the eight-year-old [[Series/TheBigBangTheory Doctor Sheldon Cooper]] in it.

* 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]].)

* Apricot does this in ''WesternAnimation/StrawberryShortcake in [[BigApplesauce Big Apple City]]; justified since she's a "baby" character like Apple Dumplin', and is just learning to talk. Orange Blossom even explains that Apricot only knows a few words, but they're all big.

* The Little Professor speech is considered a sign of UsefulNotes/AspergerSyndrome. Even Dr. Hans Asperger, who identified the condition, would playfully refer to his patients who had it as "the little professors".
* Early readers often have this and may run the risk of being mistaken for autistic.

* "Woke Toddler [[Website/{{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 ("Watching the debates and my four-year-old turned to me and said, 'why is democracy dying?'"). 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.'")

** DakotaFanning talked like she was forty right from her ''Film/IAmSam'' days. [[WiseBeyondTheirYears She learned to read at the age of two.]]

* 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".

* 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."

* "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 ("Watching the debates and my four-year-old turned to me and said, 'why is democracy dying?'"). 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.'")

* Twilight Sparkle from ''WesternAnimation/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!