I make up nonsense words and fold them into my personal lexicon like a crazed mama on a trip to the happy word grocery. I don’t know why.
Example: I call the new family kitten Boo-ka-Cheeka. Actually, I call her ‘Mama’s Little Boo-ka Cheeka Girl’. Her name is Madison. (Don’t tell anybody.)
I suppose it’s all right to simply ‘go phonetic’ here, as the entire naming thing itself, by definition, is meaningless drivel, baby. Drivel, I say, as I honestly have no earthly idea of the origin of this particular term of endearment. I mean, honestly, what the hell is a boo-ka cheeka?
Now, as we all know, I call EE ‘Sparky’, but at least that name was already a ‘nick’, and thus, rendered un-weird. Sorta.
Well, anyway, I don’t know if this is a regional thing, or a weird-family thing, this need for special naming. (Yeah, I have a weird family; it’s not even remotely my fault. I was simply tossed that gene coin and born with it, you know. I remember one of my grandmothers calling us by our actual names, shockingly, and the other one, the fun one, calling us her own pet names that were only halfway and sometimes no way connected with our names, but I do know she only gave pet names to people she cared about.
Interestingly enough, she didn’t give them to several close relatives who didn’t seem to notice this selection process - like her husband/my grandfather. Of course, maybe she saved her pet names for him for when they were all alone….OK- not going any farther on down into that thought, as I prefer to think about everyone in my family as having been chained in/on a long line of immaculate conceptions. It works better that way. Trust me. And does this mean that I prefer to live in a dream world of my own leg-dribble-fluid-free design? Hmmmm. Sorta.)
Anyway, does anyone else do this? Please, someone (or more than one, yes, that would be best) say yes and share, so I don’t feel stupid for admitting this weird thing.
And keep thinking about dates for the voice-a-thon, please. I’m thinking September might be better. Maybe Thursday the 4th? I’d say later for FH, but I noticed she mentioned she might not be able to do this anyway.
And by the way, FH, EE will miss listening to you, you know. I'm just saying! Maybe you could do a voice ahead of time, and then set it to publish on the decided day, if you want. I mean, we certainly wanna keep that boy happy, now don't we, honey?!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Voice Discussion Intermission - A Confession. Of a sort.
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28 comments:
I make up funny silly names all the time and my kids have apparently picked up on this habit. Sometimes it is not so good, like when oldest wanted to name her stuffed animal Caca Poo and I had to explain what she was trying to call her beloved toy.
I've had to restrict myself seriously in this regard. It's one thing to pet a cat while poo-ing and woo-ing and widdlywah-ing and another to accidentally summon an evil demon lord from the murky bowels of some far-flung dimension of foulness.
Call it harmless fun if you must, but believe me — you're never more than a couple of ookidookipumps away from mortal combat with the forces of evil.
When my two oldest were younger, I convinced them that they should stop shouting at each other when they got mad, and instead express their frustration by saying "oingy boingy tutti fruity weekie wacky woo." They stopped fighting immediately and laughed and laughed for, like, five whole minutes, until a dispute arose over the correct pronunciation of "weekie wacky" which they eventually settled by kicking each other in the shins. Now they just call each other names... this probably isn't what you were talking about.
Nah, I'm not as inventive as you are. Our sadly-departed cat Whisky was Kitten-toes to me and our current kitties are mostly called by their real names. Mind you, I am harbouring the hope that they will eventually learn their names.
Robin, you tempt me sorely with talk of EE. (Now if you'd said that Whirlochre would miss hearing me then I might have been unable to resist.)
The whole discussion reminds me of this.
I do tend to call my boys odd things, but they're built on their real names. Sam often becomes Samarama or Sammamish or Slam-dog. At some point Ethan became E-man. I didn't say I made up good nicknames.
One of my two cats has earned the nickname Stinky. The other is Sneaky. Their real names are Annie and Alice.
Ha! I freakiin' well love you all.
Seriously.
Hey, Pete- I LOVE this Bill Cosby bit. It's so damn funny.
And FH- my dear, now the truth comes out, eh girlfiend? EE has some ooh-la-la competition, eh?
Ello: Maybe she was really trying to tell you her stuffed animal was a "cock-a-poo" and you misunderstood. Of course, it's very easy to misunderstand legit names like "cock-a-poo" and "shih-tzu", isn't it?
Welcome home, Rob! My animals all have several names each, but I'm afraid none are very imaginative. For instance:
Ginger is aka Jenny, Jennifer, Ginger Snap, Snickers, and Ginny-Winny
Angel is aka Annie, Angie, Annie-Bananie and, when calling her home: Annie-Angie-Angel (hollered as one word)
There are many more animals and many, many more names, but you get the idea. None of them seem to care what I call them. They don't listen to me anyway.
WO: As far as the intestinal, inter-dimensional demons go, you should be pretty safe so long as you never, ever utter:
Oh, I'm terrible with this, as is my whole family. There are people who were sure my name was Susie, because my dad calls me that. My name is Kiersten Elizabeth. Where Susie came from, we're not sure. I think it evolved from Kiersty-Sue. My grandparents still call me Kitty from when I was a little girl and they called me Kitty-Bug.
My son has a beautiful name, but most of the time I call him Dojo. It just works. For years I called my little brother Bucket. Shortened from Dude Bucket. How any of that makes sense, I don't know.
For a long time if you asked my daughter what Daddy's name was, she'd tell you either Babe or Hot Stuff.
Weirdest of all is my little sister, who has in her lifetime cycled through such nicknames as: Larvis Lamonia, Hodus the Toadus, Hogus, Hodine, and now has been christened Nonny by my children. Her actual name is Lauren.
Poor old Polly has a perfectly good name. Alas it is frequently rendered as: 'The Pollster', or even worse: 'Polly-wolly-doodle-doggy'.
I think WO and FH's voices are in love. Wouldn't they make beautiful voice babies?
I had a professor in college who loved to call me Marie. No idea why. He was a great guy, though.
I wouldn't admit this publicly in most circumstances, so I'm typing it in a special font that can only be read by people who think I'm wonderful. So if you're able to read this, I preciate ya.
I call most cats, if I don't know their name, or even when I do, I call them "tittie wuss". I have for years. I think it morphed from kittie puss, not sure.
Oh well, there you go.
Ha!
You guys - I'm feeling almost normal and sane now. Thanks for that.
Hey, phoenix - good to see you, sweetie. (And WO- watch out for that secret utterance, honey. I'm serious. We don't wanna have to be fetching you from the depths...)
Miss K - love the made up name progression there. My dad sometimes called me Roe-bin-ahn-ny, a purposefully nutsy mispronunciation of Robin Annie, which was a purposeful mispronunciation of Robin Anne, my name. That's a good memory for me.
McK - polly wolly doodle doggie - how cute is that! I love that. You and BT'd do a good string together. Plus, I remember that song thing.
I agree about the FH and WO voicey luv.
Freddie Marie has a nice ring to it - damn, now it's stuck in my head.
S&M - tittie wuss? You are a nut. I love it.
I could do that first week in September (voice-wise); after that I'll be onthe road for a couple of weeks and won't have a microphone.
No silly names stories from me, I'm afraid. When I was growing up, my parents always just called me R--
Whoa! That was close!
So close, ril, so close, but no cigar! Just two little letters to go. Come on, you can do it! No?
Oh, all right....
I'm glad you're in - so it looks like we have 10, and maybe 12, for Thursday, September 4th.
So we need to decide when to have the written pieces in, so we can draw names and disseminate said writing...pieces. Snippets. Whatever.
Whippets.
Whipp-et good.
If they allowed rappers into rodeos, that's exactly what they'd sing as they rode those bucking broncos...
Or there's always this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxH39QlRuhg
Ah, Devo — bless them.
It really is time we brought them back.
So we can shoot them.
Rob, I was told once people who make up nicknames are trying to get closer to others. In other words, they have a connection with them. It seems especially prevalent in the south, so it doesn't surprise me you do it. I do also even though I am a southern girl by heart not by birth.
My mother still calls me Punkie, short for Punkin. Several people call me Jules. My real name is Julia Marie.
Oh, Whirl - you wanna shoot your countrymen, huh?
Aren't they just the most madcap little whipper snappers?
Personally, I'm lovin' those helmet heads of theirs.
And yeah Jules,
They certainly are terms of endearment - bit so often, such weird ones.
I always thought Devo were American.
You'll be telling me Edith Piaf was an aborigine next.
La vie en rosawoolagong.
Dammit, Whirl. You're right.
I just checked. They're from Ohio.
I've lived all this time (not that I thought about it night and day) just assuming they were British.
Have been very busy with my puppy who wound up having major surgery yesterday. Catching up on sleep and my blog reading a little at a time.
His name is Buddy, but he gets called Budster, Honey Bear, Darling, Sweetie, Baby Boy and a host of other sugary sweet names.
My cats were named Rennie, Imp and Murphy. They were called a lot of things including Reynolds Wrap, Impster and Murphen-Doodle.
Oh, Sarah, I hope your little guy is OK!
And I love those nicknames, girl.
Now, go take yourself a nap!!! Sounds like you really deserve one.
Pet stress is the pits.
I hope the Budster is okay too....
I read through everyone's comments, but as I was reading BT's, I'm taking mental notes thinking he's cracked the code to get kids to stop fighting. Then the punchline. There's always a punchline. Made me spew the ice water I was drinking, as well as a bit of bloody mucus from my recovring nose...
:-)
Little guy is doing well. They took off the blood pressure monitor and are pleased with how responsive he is today.
It's been an emotional roller coaster the last several days with competing diagnoses of inoperable and fatal, and I think we can take that out and cure him. Then the surgery with it's possibly fatal complication. Oy!
Visiting hour is coming up soon. I'll give him an extra hug from you guys!
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