# Codewords with Toddlers (or anyone for that matter) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 6, 2020, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431 "2020-08-06T17:34:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2020, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431/21 "2020-08-07T13:05:52Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > I got into the habit of always spelling out B-A-L-L when I had a homeschooled Border Collie who taught himself how to speak English. Still do it, and he’s been gone three years. If you Google, you can find stories of border collies that learned the names of hundreds of individual objects, so that their owner would be able to tell them, “Bring the small red ball” and they would happily do so. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2020, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431/22 "2020-08-07T13:28:11Z")
Don’t any of you people have kids?!?! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2020, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431/23 "2020-08-07T15:51:57Z")
Our dog, too, will jump to his feet, er, paws if he hears the word “walk.” So we refer to a “going on a W” instead; he still, after nine years, hasn’t figured out the substitution. ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2020, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431/24 "2020-08-07T16:13:23Z")
When my son was little, we used to say to one another that we might go to “the Scottish establishment” for lunch or dinner when we were discussing plans and didn’t want him to hear that we were considering getting McDonald’s. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2020, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431/25 "2020-08-07T16:42:53Z")
Heh. I make that joking reference to McDonald’s myself, now and then, but not to hide what I mean from anybody. ISTR that H.G. Wells in _Time After Time_ enters a Mickey D’s in San Francisco, thinking it might offer Scottish cuisine. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2020, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431/26 "2020-08-07T17:03:00Z")
Well, sure, but they’re in their forties and have caught on to all the tricks–even the youngest grandchild is ten and likewise pretty savvy. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2020, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431/27 "2020-08-07T17:49:17Z")
My first dog overreacted whenever he heard “walk”… or “stroll”… or “hike”, or “trek”, or “perambulate”, or “constitutional”, or any of the other words we could come up with. We eventually resorted to just leaving a blank spot in sentences wherever that word would go. Some of my cousins always reacted to “ice cream”, and so my aunt and uncle started spelling it. But the kids learned that whenever their parents were spelling something, it meant ice cream, and so they would nag them and ask for RQZ HDOAL or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2020, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431/28 "2020-08-07T22:01:56Z")
When visiting relatives, their young child had learned that beer and wine were bad. So they called them daddy juice and mommy juice instead. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2020, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431/29 "2020-08-08T03:41:41Z")
The little Bobs are the worst! ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2020, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431/30 "2020-08-08T09:04:40Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > We say Ess Cue (S.Q.) instead of squirrel or else our dogs go nuts. I know a software guy whose dog is similar. His abbrev. naturally is SQL. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/codewords-with-toddlers-or-anyone-for-that-matter/917431.md?page=1)