Everyone overslept this morning. The elementary school bell rings at 7:45.
Dad: "Noah! Wake up! It’s 7:35."
Noah, 10, bolting upright, very staccato: "Holy crap!"
Dad, wide eyed and thinking to himself: I’ll let that one slide on this occasion.
It was very surprising because Noah watches his tongue well around adults.
See, I’m not one to get onto a kid about language, as long as they know when NOT to use it. MastaG gained the legal use of the word “crap” in his lexicon at the age of 8 provided
a. we never heard it in the presence of anybody not in the family
b. his little brother didn’t pick it up
c. he used it appropriately (like Noah did this morning).
His birthday is 11/22, and he’ll gain the use of “hell”.
Slippery slope, AT…slippery slope.
hmmm I must admit I did chuckle when reading this post, its not the sort of thing you expect to pop out of a ten year old’s mouth,.. well not in my family anyway, but no harm done.
have to admit im not sure whats wrong with crap
its a normal word here
but then again you yanks use some words over there that mean a completely different thing here
fanny and randy are two of them!
I grew up with “fanny” being the polite way of saying buttocks, rear end, butt, bottom, or tail. Fanny is also a person’s name.
“randy” is a person’s name. It is also a rolling paper with a wire in it so that you can smoke down every last tidbit of whatever tobacco you handrolled into that cigarette. Apparently it also means “sexually aroused” but I don’t think I’ve heard it in that sense.
“crap” can be feces, clutter, a generic reference to nonspecific stuff, or just a mild explicative usually said out of surprise.
[…] Doug and I were both surprised by a recent Noah-ism. I was especially interested in the comments his readers made about what children should and shouldn’t say. When I was a child, it didn’t just matter what the word was, but also how the word was used. Anything said wrong could get me in big trouble with my father. He did try to practice what he preached since I never heard him swear until I was a teenager and I was a teenager who deserved curse words inflicted upon me. I was married with children before I ever heard anything even remotely questionable from my mother. Several months ago, Amy said “butt” and a visiting preschooler told her that it was an ugly word which she shouldn’t use. His family used cute little words for body parts, like booty and bottom. Shortly after that, Amy declared that she would just call it a “bootus”. I see nothing wrong with my children saying that babies eat from their mommy’s breasts. My children all know exactly what body part babies use as a doorway into the world. I’m less clear on the use of words that aren’t in Carlin’s dictionary. No Comments so far Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong> […]
over here fanny is used as slang for the entry to the world for babies (thanks cathy)
randy is always and only referring to horny as in sexually active or promiscuous – we cringe when watching an american tv show or movie and the persons name is randy – fanny is just laughed at – sort of a behind the back of the hand snigger
Come to think of it, every Randy I have ever known has been a horny kinda guy.
That would be very mild in my house, and my oldest is eight. They seem to have a rather wide ranging vocabulary, and I’d like to blame their mom, but it’s really me that they get it from.
I need to do better.
I’m quite certain I’ve versed my children thoroughly in Carlin’s dictionary and I am sure they could hold their own on any Navy deployment. I think they usually hold their tongues. Tommy had his bout in middle school where he exercised his vocabulary for shock value. He has moved beyond that. Sarah is testing the waters with little tidbits on her blog and pushing the boundaries with Mom to see how far she can go.
Overall, I think they use good judgement. Colorful speech is a cheap means of expression. Getting a little Emily Dickenson, Hemmingway, or Poe during conversation is far more respectable. Of course, sometimes you just need to be on another person’s level.
My friends and I would’ve made Carlin blush by 10. I grew up in Memphis, where we invented new cursing and curse-combos. Our phrases were punch-your-momma-in-the-face offensive.