From the Mouths of Babes

A couple columns ago, I embarrassed my kids by sharing some of their artful articulations of the English language. To my delight, I then received e-mails from a number of readers, equally eager to embarrass loved ones with examples of misapprehended vocallaberries.

Let’s enjoy a few of these tales, starting with this e-mail from Mindy Cook of St. Joseph, Mich., who provided some examples of her son's kid-speak. To save him from embarrassment, I’ll cleverly disguise his identity by calling him "NOT Nathan." "NOT Nathan" is around 20 years old now, so it's possible he doesn't use these words anymore. But as a lad, he artfully re-arranged the syllables of several key food groups: applesauce became "appadeuce"; spaghetti became "busgetti"; caterpillar became "calapitter."

Oops, I just double-checked with Mindy, and she says that calapitters were NOT one of young NOT Nathan’s key food groups. As far as she knows.

Karen Cox, who I believe lives around Rushville, Ind., shared the following: "The funniest thing my son (3 years at the time) ever came up with was a song. He would sing continuously, ‘See big Mommy in the night,’ and we could never figure out where he had heard such a song! Then one day while watching TV, a Menards commercial came on, (with that jingle) ‘Save big money with Menards.’ He said, ‘There Mommy, there's your song!’ He's 11 now and still has not lived that one down yet!”

Lori Brown from Southwest Michigan wrote: "When my nephew was young he called his bathing suit his ‘sootinbathe.’”

This is a good one from Cara Jordan, whereabouts not exactly known: "My 7 year old son, Elliot, is a grade ahead in homeschool and is an avid reader. However, this morning he showed that he isn't always as bright as we thought. He discovered, while telling his sister about a map he was reading of the Great Lakes, that there are three new lakes that we did not know about. Their names are Lake Ernie (Erie), Lake Horon (Huron), and Lake Orianto (Ontario)! Might be time to have the eyes tested."

(Note to Elliott: DON’T listen to your family! I’ve been to Lake Ernie! It’s right next to Lake Bert!)

An anonymous reader of the Rushville Republican wrote: "When my sister-in-law was expecting her first child, my son (almost 5) offered to help her husband cut the extension cord."

Also from Indiana: "There are several Rush County ways of pronouncing words. For example, we say ‘crick’ instead of creek; we color with ‘crins,’ not crayons; we change the ‘oral’ in our car engine; we ride ‘motor-sickles,’ not motorcycles; we work at our jobs for 8 ‘ours’ a day, and so on."

I must say this writer reminds me of my Dad, who grew up in a town you’ve never heard of, called Veedersburg, Ind., where he learned to say--and still says today--"Ha-woya" instead of Hawaii.

Marsan Schaer of Eau Claire, Mich. wrote: "My son is a delivery driver for United Parcel Service. One day I walked into his house and saw a package on the table. I asked, ‘Where did the package come from?’ His 4 year old daughter, Taylor, knew the answer: ‘The P.U.S. man brought it!’ She is also the little girl who, one hot summer day, asked if she could play in the wading pool and could she wear her ‘zucchini’ (bikini). Obviously, she had been helping her Mom in the garden!"

A special note to everyone mentioned by name in this column: Remember that it’s NOT your parent’s, aunt’s or grandparent’s fault you got mocked in this column. It’s not my fault either. It’s yours!

But just to make sure that you have company in your misery, I’ll share my No. 2 son's (now age 20) childhood pronunciation of Grandpa. He first uttered this when he was 2 or 3 years old, and it’s a greeting we still use every time we see my Dad: "Crappaw."

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PS to you Crappaws and Crapmaws out there: Share some funny words used by your crapdaughters and crapsons.

TakefiveT5@yahoo.com