Category: Language

The Decipherists: Mamoo
23 May
Posted in Decipherists No comments

The Decipherists: Mamoo

A babbling toddler speaks in a language only those closest to him can understand, and often even they are giving it their best guess.

The third entry in the Decipherists series tackles that very situation, in which our son uses one almost-a-word type sound to mean multiple things. Or maybe just one meaning. We really have no idea. It seems like it’s a pretty all-purpose word for the kid, seeing as he uses it for a variety of items.

It took some time, and the process of elimination, but we think we’ve been able to suss it out.

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The Decipherists: Top eee!
18 May
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The Decipherists: Top eee!

When I was a kid, I used to read the funny papers every morning. I loved “Garfield” (for some reason), as well as “The Far Side” and a few others. There was a brief period when I followed “Rose is Rose,” which was a light-hearted strip about a couple and their new baby.

Here’s why, from Wikipedia: From the comic’s debut in 1984 until the strip published on 9 August 1991, the character of Pasquale spoke only in a ‘phonetic baby talk.’

It was fun to try and decipher what the kid in the strip was saying, kind of like when I was in high school and helped my friend decipher Rush lyrics. It was a game. Now, suddenly, my life is like that comic strip, except it’s a little less fun.

And hopefully my son’s baby talk phase won’t last seven years.

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The Decipherists: Coo-coo
08 May
Posted in Decipherists 2 comments

The Decipherists: Coo-coo

My kid is a babbler. Always has been. Since the day he was born he’s been making noises with his mouth.

At the start there wasn’t much substance to the things he was “saying” – they were the typical ga-gas and wah-wahs and MMMBop sounds that all babies make. But, striver that he is, he has never rested; in his ongoing quest to master the English language, he makes great strides everyday.

Of course, as I said yesterday, children are stupid, and the strides our son has made are great only when compared to other people under two. They’re not all that impressive when compared with, say, Noam Chomsky.

At a year-and-a-half old, while his vocabulary has been growing exponentially, he hasn’t even reached the level of “darndest” yet.

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Raising Kids With Religion – or Not
28 Jan
Posted in discipline 9 comments

Raising Kids With Religion – or Not

I was raised Catholic. And like everyone else who was raised Catholic, I am what you might call “lapsed.” (In reality I am actually just “not a Catholic anymore,” but my parents might read this, so let’s go with “lapsed.”)

I don’t put much truck in religion these days; it has its purpose for many, and I don’t begrudge them their beliefs, except of course when they use those beliefs as a rationale for violence and intolerance and hatred and war and etc. Which is a lot of people, but it certainly isn’t the majority. So go ahead and pray if you like; I just won’t be joining you.

But my son might.
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Time To Be A Role Model?
27 Aug
Posted in Babies 4 comments

Time To Be A Role Model?

The other day, my wife gently let me know that she was a little concerned with the language I used in my last post. That’s not an MP, I said. That’s a YP.

But then, the next day…

The doctor told us she loved the way my wife’s cervix looked. She used terms like effacement and dilated and etc. She says it should be any day now.

Let me repeat: It should be any day now that I will have a son. Yikes.

Does this change everything? Is it time for me to tone down my language, reconsider some of my actions in the face of becoming a father. Is what was just a few days ago purely a YP now an MP?

Is it time for Dad and Buried to grow up? Can I?

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