I was thinking this morning (actually yesterday morning) about some of the cute things that kids mispronounce. I recall my mother telling me that I used to call the delicious orange drink made from powder “Makey Juicy”, because I always wanted her to make more. That powder was Co-op orange crystals, not Tang, cos it was cheaper. This would have been for about the first two years of my life (I’ll take her word for it).
My brother called chicken “Chickey” until about about the age of four. My sister had a couple, actually, which were quite cute. Although she denies it, she mispronounced “Milk” as “Mloke” when she was young and called motorcycles “Bike-l-cycles”. How adorable is that?
I don’t know what made me take this little path down memory lane, but it was fun.
What about you? What words or phrases did you come up with as a youngster.
For some reason as a child, upon encountering a difficult word to pronounce I would resort to a generic “wah-wah”. I have no idea why this is so but many a raucaous laughter by my family and friends has been given upon my account telling this story. The most famous account stems fron the inabilty to say my sisters name, Keira, as told by her numerous times.
“Okay, say Kayyy…”
And I would succeed by replying “Kayyy”…
“Now say …Raaahhhh”, my sister becoming more encouraged.
“Raaahhh”, I would proudly proclaim.
Then my sister would go for the gold by connecting those two feats together. “Now say Kayyy … Raaahh”
“Wah Wah” I would shout back! * sigh * I eventually picked up but I am still no public speaker and I stutter to this day when I get nervous!! I theorize the speech part of my brain is weak! haahah John Macdonald can testify to this but realying how I struggled as a telemarketer at RMH to say “Long Diiistance”.. I would always die at the D!
That was an indication that you were suited for bigger and better things! Thanks for sharing, Devin. Anybody else? Or, are you all “just too perfect!”
My oldest daughter made an ironic switch to common words when we lived in our first apartment. She constantly refferred to it as the “Dirty old Compartment” As I recall we had several families in the three story walk up with less then hygenic life styles and the dog would be constantly digging at the carpet for the silverfish and other critters under it while mom and dad whacked cockroaches every night on thier post light turning on scurry off the counters. WE moved shortly after having our apartment fumigated twice with no longterm decrease in the bugs.
Well, my mom was kind enough to inform the hubby of two of mine that he brings up every now and then. “Geep” for grape and “poon” for spoon. My parents named a small stray “Bar-Bar” because I would stand at the front door saying “Bar!Bar!Bar!Bar!” at it. I remember none of those incidents. Don’t remember Bar-Bar either.
My kids have had a few good ones. My daughter used to say “helidoctor” for helicopter. For some reason she would say “ksool” instead of “school” for about a year when she was around 4. Both my kids still say “theetier” instead of “theater” which drives me up the wall. Ha, and my daughter used to pronounce “frog” like that other 4-letter f word. I about died the first time she said it because I thought she was dropping the f-bomb. Heh.