All The Things That We Don't Say

"Whatever".

Topping the list of words we don't say, whatever. Used as it is now most common, it reeks of disrespect and disregard. It dismisses the conversation and attempts to relieve the speaker of any responsibility for content. In short, whatever is a bad word and I had better not hear it from either of my children, ever.

Last week at dinner Mary said whatever, using it appropriately in a sentence such as "whatever you want is fine with me" and immediately clamped her hand over her mouth. Ah yes, the brilliance of the English language and our ability to use the same word in an infinite number of ways.  We tried to clarify, further confusing our daughter. Whatever.

Also on the list, "freakin'". No, just because you have substituted a non word to cover for what you really want to say, freakin' is not only not acceptable, it is not a word. The girls hear this at school, one of their classmates having recently adopted this gem to refer to whatever is the bother of the moment: freakin' math, freakin' test, freakin' teacher (librarian). We will not be adding this to our ever growing vocabulary, nor, for now, it's bad boy counterpart. No freakin' way.

My children will also speak with a full complement of Gs. They do not go bikin', skatin', or runnin'. They do not enjoy readin' or learnin' and will, should they momentarily become lazy and think that a G is not necessary, be corrected. We are learning the correct way to speak by doing and speaking and modeling. Enough said.

Not a word but a phrase, and one that I do not want to hear: "what the...?". Not allowed. Anything leading to something not allowed will not be used. What the what? Nope, unless you can find a end to that question that is not offensive, the phrase in it's entirety is out, including the lead in. What the hell? Exactly.

One of my favorite books to read in the library has the word "stupid" in the text. Every time I read this book there is a gasp as soon as I turn the page; those children reading along immediately see the offensive word and hands fly into the air, "bad word!". These same children say "what the...?" when later I tell them that because they have an overdue book they will not be checking out a new one. How stupid.

We also discourage the use of nouns as verbs, primarily the word party, correctly used to describe an event or gathering, not referring to your 23 year old self on any given Friday night. My children might attend a party, they will not "party" while there. Equally disturbing, the evolution of this word used by anyone over 25 (although still a bit grating before that). No 58 year old woman should ever suggest that she is going to "party", and no one should ever see it if it happens. Have fun, go crazy, attend a party and dance like mad, just don't "party", don't ever do that, please.

And then we move to bodily functions, not parts, we're still working on those, but bodily functions, those my father referred to as the BFs, as in "if you must refer to a bodily function in the car, please do so by saying BF. I have no interest in hearing about specifics". Nor do I Dad. My children use the restroom, or bathroom. They do not announce what they will do once they get there, or they are not supposed to (but they're 9, shit happens). If they do need to tell me specifics, and I know that sometimes they must, we prefer the far more refined and mature word, tinkle. My children do not go pee, nor do they pee-pee. They never have, I pray they never will. And for that most wonderful of bodily functions, the one that has the power to make just almost anyone laugh (and then sometimes cry in horror), we use "toot". The other word, the one that has made it's way into the book title of the most horrid of children's books, Walter the Farting Dog, I find to be completely crass and vulgar. Except for those 10 years when it was the only thing I called my sister (but to be fair, she tooted constantly), I abhor the word.
 

Last week I stumbled upon an in progress Mom conversation concerning appropriate bodily function words. It was too much to take, a Mom friend who was as uptight and rigid as me? Her children are only allowed to tinkle and toot, nothing else is permitted. We need to party with these people, freakin' awesome.

Yuck, not even in jest.

Drivin' South

Having spent the last week traversing the south east, an area of the country relatively new to me, my previous experience only being flying over to destination points much warmer than home, I am left with several impressions, generally positive.

As we were promised, the drive through the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee was lovely. Sadly we raced through, ears popping with only mild screaming, on interstate highway, but the view from our windows was really spectacular. Not winding and nauseating like the Rockies can sometimes be, these mountains are somewhat squatty and easy to manage, with abundant trees and greenery, just wonderful to see.

The Gulf of Mexico has, without a doubt, some of the nicest beaches I have ever seen, and while I am not an expert, I am somewhat well beach traveled and was really overwhelmed with the sand and the clear water, simply beautiful. And as a bonus, we saw dolphins frolicking around just off shore on many days, whole families of them just dancing about in the water; the girls, and I, were enchanted.

For years I have lived under the delusion that I hail from the strip mall capital of the world, the Midwest. This is just not true; in four days I found myself trapped no less than four times in parking lots large enough to land planes, possibly an option as there were few cars using the vast space suited specifically for them, ironically in a community that accepts golf carts as a viable means of transportation . Clearly designed to alienate and confuse people, strip malls leave me bewildered and longing to use my feet. A quick trip to Walgreens stretched into a long afternoon when I decided, foolishly, to pick up sandwiches to take back to the beach. From the parking lot I could see the Jersey Mike's sign, only one strip mall over, closer than the distance I walk to the train in the morning. In no time I realized that making this trip on foot would be at great risk to my continued ability to live. Begrudgingly I got back in my car and immediately found myself in the drugstore drive-thru. Waving as I passed the window I turned out, where a no left turn sign sent me into the strip mall on the other side of the strip mall where Jersey Mike was making subs, or did it? There was a nail salon, a shipping place, a liquor store, and...a Subway, wrong chain. Walgreens was now behind me, a beacon offering a point of reference in a land where everything looked exactly the same, and I was lost, or more accurately trapped.

Aside from the beaches, the panhandle of Florida looks just like the suburbs of Chicago, or St. Louis, or Kansas City, with palm trees, convertibles, tan people, and, yes, golf carts.

Most noticeably, I am left to wonder what has happened to all the G's? In one weeks time we saw signs imploring us to go fishin', swimmin', and drinkin'. Flying behind a plane over the beach, a banner invited us to " a foamin' party". We were offered some good eatin' and dancin', and my very favorite, a restaurant whose name was Grillin and Cookin. This place didn't even bother using an apostrophe, to hint that another letter might have once existed at the end of the word, confidently asserting that grillin and cookin are actual words generally accepted in an English speakin' country. What have they done with all the G's?

My mother's mother, from Dallas, spent years begging me to slow down, my speech was too fast and hurried, she couldn't understand me at all, and I spent years trying, while quietly hoping that she could speed up, maybe take less than 7 minutes to describe tuna salad on wheat toast, but it never happened. I should have listened, foreseeing that one day I might like to have a cup of tea somewhere in Alabama.

Me: A cup of tea please, black.
Manager: Whasthat?
Me: Yes, a cup of tea, just black.
Manager: Begpardin?
Me: (slowly) Just a cup of tea please.
Manager: Aaaaahhhh, ti. Sweetin'?
Me: (lost) Right, tea? Sweetin'?
Manager: Mmmmmm, ti. Yew whant that with the sweetin'?
Me: Sweetened? No, no, just plain black tea.
Manager: Yew fram round hair?
Me: Pardon me?
Manager: Hmmm, I kneew that, I did. Evryone fram round hair prefirs sweetin' ti.

This was quite possibly the most patient person I have ever encountered. He made every effort to find me a plain black tea, which was no small task, and then we the tea actually appeared, delivered by another, it was, of course, sweetin'd. He apologized profusely and set off to fix the mistake himself. Black tea, while readily available in Chicago, is not usually delivered with this much personal interest and never with a smile so large.

Beautiful beaches, miles and miles of strip malls, no G's, and some of the kindest people I have ever met. Incredibly friendly, and genuinely interested in our family and curious as to what kind of insanity brought us to drive over 1,000 miles to their alluring corner of the country. We'll be back, and we'll pack our own G's.

There Are Not Words

Recently my cousin, mother to an almost three year old boy, revealed to me that on choice occasions Liam likes to let fly with a hearty "God Damnit", sending her racing for cover, hiding her laughter. She can pinpoint the exact exposure as both she and her husband have done a fine job of editing in their word choices since Liam was born. Not so at my house. Jack seems to live by the "Do as I say, not as I do" mantra, which opened the door to at least a week, if not a few days more, of Mary marching down the hall to time out, shouting "Dammit, well DAMMIT" the entire way. Points for using the word correctly I suppose, and for adding some much needed levity to time out situations, but we were all pleased when her personal word exploration days came to a close.

To be fair, a well placed word can really serve you well, and to that, I find that omitting, rather than replacing works best for me. There are no "Jimminy Crickets" served at my house, words used correctly, but not within ear shot of five year old ears, are perfectly acceptable, however, like all good things, saturation leads to ineffectiveness.

Which in no way explains Kate's recent exclamation as she shed her coat after a long day spent at kindergarten, "I simply LOVE this freakin' coat".

We were left speechless.

A little William Safire'esque note: this required me to do some research on the correct spelling of a few words. Dammit, not damnit, is correct when using the word alone however, when prefacing it with God, it becomes damnit, a variation of damn it. Why dammit is not also based on that variation, I have no idea.

What's In a Name

It's a word I've used more in the last six months than juice box. A word I toss around casually yet alternatively makes me shudder and sing, and a word I've not given much more thought to than where, and how, and really? And then I had to translate, to try and explain to Balbina why Mary and Kate were stuffing the Senator and the President into backpacks, getting ready for school, on a Thursday afternoon in June at two in the afternoon, it's kindergarten.

My Spanish dictionary translated it as jardin de ninos. What? Really? Si Ally, escuela para ninas, jardin de ninos. The French say jardin d'enfant, and in English speaking countries we use the German kindergarten, which translates as children's garden, but of course I had never thought to translate it, the word being the school equivalent of Kleenex and Jello.

The word garden is also of German origin and generally pertains to a fertile place of cultivation (unless you are in England where garden is commonly used as Americans use yard). And being that we live in Chicago and not Devonshire, perhaps I should feel comforted that my children will soon spend their days in a garden, a place to be nourished and enriched, where they can learn and grow in a sunny and warm place.