Saturday, February 03, 2007

ESL

I think most families have expressions and words that are only understood by members of that family. When I was a child, we called marmalade laddle-dee-dee because Uncle Stephen called it such when he was a child himself. Tuna noodle casserole was noona toodle casserole because Judy once accidentally called it this on her radio program.

In adulthood, I have had no need of any words for marmalade or tuna noodle because I no longer eat these things now that I have the freedom to grocery shop for myself. But in spite of our childlessness, Shawn and I have given birth to a whole new language that we are fluent in and which only makes sense to us. When we are alone together we don't speak much English. I like being able to meet his eyes across the table and mouth beeee jooo and have him know just exactly what I mean.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Josh and I lived with his parents for awhile. They have a dog. The dog is spoken to in a bizarre construct of babyspeak. You don't say, Come here, you say, Commee. Instead of over there, ova day. Entire consonants were dropped. Inevitably, of course, we all spoke like this not just to the dog but to each other.

Which was well and good, until one day I told a colleague "Dere in day!" (Loosely translated as, "My dear, you will certainly be able to find a glorious supply of paperclips in our bounteous and ever-giving supply closet.") I have never gotten over it.

mischief said...

*giggles* I LOVE that. Shawn once asked a colleague "Wot took yong?" Fortunately *most* (though I'm ashamed to admit not *all*) of our language is not babytalk - so if we accidentally speak OurSpeak outside the home we can pretend it was just a cough or a spasm of some kind. :)

Anonymous said...

Can you smile with your hair? I think you can.

Yes. You can.

mischief said...

I *can*.