pneumonia vs ammonia

...a teaching opportunity

Driving along in the car with my daughter the other day, she asked me what ammonia was... I still don't know why.

I asked her if she meant pneumonia or ammonia she said both.  I explained that pneumonia was a sicknes like a really bad chest cold, and ammonia was was a strong smelling cleaning agent.  She asked me to explain it two more times and then she asked why we didn't just call pneumonia a cold.  So I went further to explain that it meant you had fluid and an infection in your lungs and it was so bad that you could get hospitalized.

I'm pretty sure she will remember those words much better than if they had been on a list and she had to write them down 5 times and then take a test on friday.