What I Saw in Target Today

H Schinske wrote:
I think Booby is fine. I can't imagine a child saying "I want your tit".
People would definitely stare. All my kids call it a booby or bubby to the
baby. It's just like saying poopy, or pee pee for penis, or chi chi for
pacifier, or nuny for night night. The are all more appropriate for kids.
Kris


See, to me, boob is among the words I hardly heard until fifth or sixth grade.
The kind of thing you hear when you have to run the gantlet of jeering kids by
the lockers. I know of course that most people use it as you do, and mean no
harm by it, but my associations are different, so it wouldn't come at all
naturally to me to teach my kids to say "boob".


That's how I think of "boob", too - as an adolescent vulgarity. Not
anything either of my children would ever hear at home, for sure.

Clisby

Bruce and Jeanne wrote:

Like Clisby, I told my child to say "I want to nurse" when she wanted
to nurse. I discouraged nicknames for breastfeeding - "nursing"
already is a euphemism and having a euphemism for a euphemism is kind
of silly.

Gabe calls it a nursing session a snack : )
I don't really mind some euphemisms - yes, I refer to what we deposit into
the toilet as poop and pee, not excrement and urine. : ) I deliberately have
avoided using euphemisms for genitals, though, because culturally we've long
treated them as dark, dangerous, dirty, scary, etc. I want Gabe to see his
penis as just another part of his body, not the shameful bit Whose Name We
Do Not Speak.


For penis, pacifier and night night, we say penis, pacifier and
good-night. I also taught my daughter vagina and clitoris instead of
whatever the euphemisms are (I don't even know).

I can think of a few offhand, but I'm assuming that you don't necessarily
WANT to know...

I use vulva - to me, a vagina is more analogous to the urethra or vas
deferens in men; it's internal. The external female genital structure is the
vulva.

--
iphigenia
www.tristyn.net
"i have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
i do not think that they will sing to me."

"Tine Andersen" . dk wrote in message . dk...

The last 10-15 years a new term has come up for 'defecate' (:-). The
employees of many day-cares say the Danish equivalent word for '****'. It
shocked me quite a bit in the beginning, but after 10 years it has ended up
being 'the' neutral word among kids. 'I have to go make ****'. It's clear,
it's easy to say (in Danish) and you CANNOT misunderstand what the child
means. But it still makes the older generation jump.

That's hilarious!

That reminds me of a related subject. There are a couple of terms
that I've noticed adults almost universally (near me, at least) use
when talking to little kids - "going potty" and "owies." I've started
using those terms, mainly because I want him to understand when all
the other grownups and kids say it! However, other than that, I try
to use mainly grownup talk. Well, a few exceptions that I just like -
jammies for pajamas, "go night-night" for go to sleep.

Irene
(in the US, fwiw)

"iphigenia" skrev i en meddelelse
...
toypup wrote:

Yeah, it's sort of my peeve. People jumping all over everyone else
because they use the improper term insert term, then go on to call
it vagina when they really mean vulva.

And it does seem to lead to misunderstandings. I've seen more than one
mention online about "tips for shaving the vagina."

(My tip would be...don't. Ever. Ow.)


Would that be an 'owie'? :-D

Tine

On 06 Sep 2003 17:02:30 GMT, OSPAM (Naomi Pardue)
wrote:

Right. I think it's pretty COMMON in the states, and commonly used among
adults. I've just never thought of it as being particularly "polite". It's a
term that might be used in the bedroom, or among a group of close girlfriends,
but not in "polite" conversation.

Reminds me of the blue haired, old ladies who refer to their "water
works." As in, "Well, you know Mildred had to see the doctor on
Friday. Seems there is something wrong with her water works." The
first time I heard that I laughed.

--
Daye
Momma to Jayan
"Boy" EDD 11 Jan 2004
See Jayan: http://jayan.topcities.com/

On Sun, 07 Sep 2003 18:43:23 GMT, "toypup" wrote:

One lady stood up on national tv on the Jerry Springer show and told the
world she urinated from her vagina. I wonder if that was the "proper" term
she was taught as a child.

LOL! I would love to see pics of that.

My DD doesn't call her female parts anything yet, but she has "bum"
down.

--
Daye
Momma to Jayan
"Boy" EDD 11 Jan 2004
See Jayan: http://jayan.topcities.com/

Reminds me of the blue haired, old ladies who refer to their "water
works." As in, "Well, you know Mildred had to see the doctor on
Friday. Seems there is something wrong with her water works." The
first time I heard that I laughed.

My OB actually used that term to me -- "How's your waterworks?". He was also a
women's urologist, and I guess he sees a lot of the blue-haired set.

--Helen

wrote:

Yeah, it's sort of my peeve. People jumping all over everyone else because
they use the improper term insert term, then go on to call it vagina when
they really mean vulva.

I think it's just a matter of idiom. You wouldn't say it was particularly odd
to speak of a mouth when what you really meant was the lips, or to speak of
"pierced ears" rather than "pierced earlobes" or "pierced pinnae."

--Helen

On 08 Sep 2003 00:03:39 GMT, (H Schinske) wrote:

My OB actually used that term to me -- "How's your waterworks?". He was also a
women's urologist, and I guess he sees a lot of the blue-haired set.

When I mentioned it to my mother, MIL and DH's Nan, they were
surprised that I hadn't heard of the term before. Maybe I am just too
young to have heard it before. Nan said that she knew lots of ladies
in her age group who used it all the time. She said it was more
polite.

--
Daye
Momma to Jayan
"Boy" EDD 11 Jan 2004
See Jayan: http://jayan.topcities.com/

Sometimes children change the names of things to make it more familiar and
easier for them. I am not an advocate for baby talk, it is important to
say
the correct words for things, however if a child has his own term for
something so what. So if you think a child should only use proper terms in
their vocabulary, does that mean that they should call their parents
"Mother" and "Father" as opposed to "Mommy" and "Daddy" or "Mama" and
"Dada". Well I guess that would mean they would only have a grandmother,
not
a gramma or nana. Does this apply to names also; "No, No, honey, you may
not
call that little girl Nikki, her correct name is Nicole." Maybe it is
just
where you live, but where I am from pet names and the like are quite
common
and not considered baby talk. I would consider baby talk to be "does the
wittle itty teeny baba wanna wittle bita milk, I tink the wittle baba do,
I
tink he do, dontcha?" That is a little absurd.


I agree 100%